Daring Do and The Dangerous Dungeon : The Embark
By: Pnoy
~~~
The boat's motors rumbled rythmically as the river and its many tides lightly bounced the craft over its every impression. The air was thick and humid, the sun positioned high in the sky and the heat almost as unbearable as the thick plague of mosquitos.
"Oi- These buggers are gonna drive me nuts!" Dante shouted, flailing his hoof at the rampaging insects.
"Quit your whining Dante, we're almost there," Daring Do said while investigating the map she bore.
The map was long since outdated and Daring Do could hardly tell what was what through all the scribbling and marks that were left by previous owners. They had bought the map from a vendor shortly before departing for the Amazonian jungle. 'It was rumored there was an ancient lost dungeon out in these parts,' Daring Do reciting a conversation she had with the vendor. From what everypony was telling her, that any pony that went out and sought this mysterious place, 'never returned.'
~~~
"OOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~~~" Pinkie Pie imitating a ghost to the rest of her friends.
"Pinkie! Don't interrupt the story!" Twilight demanded.
"Yeah Pinkie, unlike you some of us enjoy a good story." Rainbow Dash added
There was a short silence amongst the mane six before they broke out into laughter.
"Hey! What's so funny?" The rainbow pegasus not finding the irony so appealing.
"Hehe, Sorry Rainbow I just love seeing you get so into these books," Twilight Sparkle chuckled.
"Yeah, yeah- whatever just get going with the story already!" Rainbow pouted, shrugging off her friends' teases.
"One second darling!" Rarity added while applying more of her face mask.
After taking a moment to make sure her face was completley covered in the green paste, Rarity placed cucumbers over her eyes and waved for Twilight to continue reading.
"Right- now where was I..." Twilight started, her eyes scanning through the book. "Ah there we are, 'And so the group prepared themselves for whatever awaited them in the near future.'"
~~~
"Something about this place seems to upset many of the natives," remarked Sebastion from the rear of the boat.
Sebastion was a quiet pony mostly keeping to himself, but always there when you needed him. However, he never really let anypony else know what was on his mind.
"What makes you say that?" Dante inquired after waving away another torrent of the airbourne vampires.
Sebastion returned Dante with a blank stare.
"Ya know, sometimes I question if you actually hear me."
"Maybe he's just ignoring you- eh?" shot Petrovich, a Russian earth pony.
"Yeah well why are you here? You're just that random Russian stranger of the group that we picked up at the dock, you're obviously up to no good, the Russians never are."
"Oh stop it Dante, Petrovich isn't just some random pony, I told you I knew him from adventure school," Daring Do added, putting down her map.
"Adventure school? Is that even a thing?"
Petrovich chuckled, "Only to those who are suitable to survive its curriculum."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Dante stood up, revealing his red coat and orange mane from underneath his cloak.
The russian earth pony, bearing a symbol of grain on his flank put his hooves up mockingly surrendering to Dante.
Tha-Dump!
Suddenly the boat shook violently from side to side as the bottom of its hull hit a rock just beneath the surface of the water. Most of the crew managed to grab onto safety before being flung over board, all except for one clumsy yet faithful companion of Daring's.
"Derpy!" Daring Do shouted.
The confused grey pegasus found herself adrift in the middle of the river. To her dismay she could make out rapids up a head and she started frantically peddeling back to the boat.
"Come on Derpy!" Daring Do shouted to the pegasus, waving her hoof for her to come closer.
Out of nowhere, a monsterous reptilian roar broke the ambience of the rushing rapids. A giant seventeen foot long alligator breached the surface of the river in which it laid in wait for an unsuspecting victim.
"Crikey! That's one big gator!" Dante exclaimed.
Derpy screamed in panic as the giant reptilian pursued her, easily out swimming her.
Daring Do looked around frantically and spotted a white tube labled, In case of pony overboard. She quickly grabbed the tube and threw it out to Derpy. "Derpy grab onto the tube we'll pull you back in!"
Just as the tube hit the water, Derpy managed to grab on to it and Daring with the help of Petrovich, Dante and Sebastian, started pulling the rope in, getting Derpy farther and farther away from the giant pursuing gator.
Once again the boat shook violently tossing Petrovich and Dante into the water, practically ontop of eachother.
EEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR-
A violent and loud screech shook the vessel tremendously and the boat started tilting to its side.
"It seems we have sprung a leak." Sebastian announced in a seemingly inappropriatly calm voice.
"That is great Sebastian how about giving me a hoof over here!?" Daring Do called out while she was stuck holding onto the boat and the rope that was attached to the tube.
Sebastian nodded and rushed over to Daring's aid while Petrovich and Dante were struggling to climb back onto the boat.
Derpy still holding on for dear life, saw the giant gator lunge at her, without the other's help she was surley doomed. The gator clamped its mouth down on the pegasus only to be met with a jaw breaking hardness.
It almost sounded as if the beast cried.
"Ooooo-" Daring grimmaced seeing the blatant amount of pain plastered on the gator's face after managing to chomp directly on Derpy's thick and impenetrable skull.
"Oof, this feels funny." Derpy stated while staring down the throat of the gator.
The giant beast dropped Derpy back into the murky water and slowly retreated back into its lair, minus a few teeth.
Dante flopped onto the deck of the boat panting heavily, "H-heh! I-I guess that head of your's came in handy after all! H-Ha, W-Who woulda thought huh?"
Shortly following Dante, Petrovich made his way back onto the boat.
"I swear this boat had been... taller..." Petrovich observed as the water spilled onto the deck of the boat.
"Everypony get what you can, we gotta get off this boat!" Daring exclaimed.
With one final heave Daring Do and Sebastian hauled Derpy back onto the boat to pseudo-safety. As the hull of the boat continued to tear along the rugged surface of the underwater boulder it eventually broke free and the boat began drifting down the river right into the rapids.
"Those rapids are gonna tear this boat to shreds!" Petrovich exclaimed while hurriedly packing everything into his saddlebags.
Daring Do looked around the boat, evaluating her options. She then darted over to the engines that were idling.
"Hold on!" She yelled.
She jammed the throttle to the highest it would go and the engines accelerated the boat forward. The boat was facing the bank of the river and was headed straight for it.
"We're gonna crash!" Dante observed.
"That's the point!" Daring Do replied.
Just before the force of the rapids was enough to rip the boat apart, it collides into the bank and flipped the vessel forward onto the shore.
~~~
Twilight Sparkle yawned. "Oh wow! That was exciting what did you-" As Twilight moved her eyes from the book she sees that most of her friends had already passed out listening to her read the story. All except for Rainbow Dash who loyally maintained conciousness as to not lose a moment of her favorite heroine, even as her eyes were already slowly shutting more and more. Twilight chuckled to herself, "Well I guess it is pretty late, we better get some sleep huh Rainbow?"
Rainbow smirked and nodded drowsily as her eyes shut for the last time that night.
Twilight smiled looking at her friends, they were so cute piled up like that, snoring and cuddeling amongst each other. But Twilight grimmaced when she witnessed Applejack rolling over into in Rarity's tub of facial cream.
