Daring Do and the Griffon's Gobletby Slender Pony7ChaptersA/NPrologueChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3A/NCopyright Page Copyright 0110 by Slender Pony All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Equestrian Copyright Act of 0011, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a databarn or retrieval system, without the prior hoof-written permission of the publisher. Slender Reading Co. Haychette Book Group 237 Barn Avenue, New Horse, NH 10017 www.FiMfiction.com Slender Reading Company is a division of Haychette Book Group, Inc. The Slender Reading Company name and logo are trademarks of Haychette Book Group, Inc. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. First Paperback Edition: May 0110 First published in hardcover in July 0100 by Slender Reading Co. The ponies and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real ponies, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. In the event a real name is used, it is used fictitiously. Library of Congress Coltaloging-in-Publication Data Pony, Slender. Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet / Slender Pony. --- 1st ed. p. cm. --- (Daring Do) Summary: Since you don't know what this is about, I can't give out my smart-aleck summary, can I? Well, I'm not exactly sure what this is about yet either, and since I doubt you'e reading this anyways, then I'll just say that there willl be: Daring Do, something called a "Griffon's Goblet" (I know. Can Griffon's own goblets?), some villain with an unpronouncable that will be a Griffon (Duh), maybe with a pet gargoyle griffon, I don't know, and there will also be some OC's this time. No Mary Sues or Self Inserts, don't worry. ISBN 978-0-316-03698-7(hc) / 978-0-316-03830-1 (pb) [1. Talking Ponies-Fiction. 2. Talking ponies with wings-Fiction. 3. You actually reading this-Fiction. 4. Some sort of long-lost goblet shrouded in fog that apparently is only used by griffons-Fiction. 5. A FRIGGIN’ WINGED TALKING PONY!-Fiction. 6. Some sort of villain that wants to take over a world filled with magical talking ponies-Fiction. 7. A Stone Griffon-Fiction.] I. Pony, Slender II. Title. PZ7.Y25673Dl 2010 [Fic] ---- dc22 7777777777 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 RBD-S Printed in the United Towns and Cities of Equestria Dedications 1. To the Aviators, because they are awesome. 2. To Lauren Faust. You know why. 3. To all sheep, because you remind me of Coco, my big standard poodle. 4. To Coco, because you remind me of the sheep that remind me of you. And you are also awesome. 5. To Scootaloo: STAY AWAY FROM KFC! 6. To KFC: STAY AWAY FROM SCOOTALOO! 7. And now, a very serious and sincere one, to anybody who reads this and likes it, because you are the ones that made any of this possible. I know it sounds cheesy and all, but without anybody to read this story and enjoy it, this story wouldn’t exist. And I would be the only person left on Earth. ;..( Table of Contents Prologue Random number of unnamed chapters that I don't know the amount of yet Epilogue (maybe) PrologueDaring Do and the Griffon's Goblet Prologue "And that, young foals, is the legend of the Sapphire Stone." Daring Do scanned the faces of the pupils in Mr. Book's class. They were all staring up at Daring as if she were something more legendary than the Stone itself - Which, in a way, she was. Daring Do (Miss Do, to the students, of course) was giving them all a tour of the Museum of Natural Equestrian History, where she currently worked, and their field trip was nearly over. Daring had just finished telling them about the legendary Sapphire Stone, which had been lost for a great while before Daring Do herself had ventured into the Everfree Forest and retrieved it from the talons of Ahuizotle, an evil jackal-thing that wanted the Stone for himself. "Any questions?" asked Daring. For a few minutes, nopony said anything. "Wow." As soon as one of them, a pegasus colt, broke the the silent spell, all hooves were raised. Daring was used to this reaction; she pointed at a blue-maned earth pony and said, "You first." "Oh, well, um, were you attacked by any monsters before the tiger and stuff?" "Oh, yeah, I did have to outrun a giant Scorpio. If it weren't for the close proximity of the trees, it would've caught up to me like that." Do answered, punctuated the sentence with a clapping of her hooves. "Next... You!" Daring chose a purple unicorn filly. "What's a Scorpio? It sounds horrible!" The unicorn said. "Ah... Well, have any of you heard of an Ursa Major or Minor?" "OOH! I have! Um, an Ursa Major is, um, in the constellation family, which is, um, a group of really big animals that are made of stars. I think." "That's correct! Well, a Scorpio is a giant red scorpion constellation. Fortunately, it wasn't used to the thickness of the part of the Everfree I was in, so I was able to outrun it. No biggie, though. Anybody else? How about you?" This time it was a purple-maned, black-coated unicorn with glasses and a vest. "How deep into the Everfree did you go?" "Straight to the heart of it. That's where the temple with the Stone was. Yes, did you have one?" She asked another pegasus this time. "Did you die?" "Oh... Um... Yeah, sure. So, is there anybody else that-" "Excuse me, Miss Do." Daring turned around to face an earth pony with a brown coat and mane with an hourglass cutie mark. "Oh, um excuse me for a second, children. Mr. Whooves, I'm kind of busy at the moment, what do you want?" "Well, the rest of the architectural team said they may have figured something extremely important, and that it would be best if you came urgently. And don't worry, I've already got Manny ready to take over the class." "Oh. Well, I guess I had better go see what it is then." Daring turned around to face the children again. "Well, it looks like I'm needed over in the Historical Discoveries department, so I'm going to have to leave you with Manny!" The children groaned and moaned, but Daring was already following Doctor Whooves into a hallway just off the Crystal Sea exhibits. Down the hall, seventh door on the left, was the Histtorical Discoveries room, where the architectural team (which included Daring Do) went when they found something. Daring opened the door and stepped inside, where the rest of the team were gathered around a table with a map sitting on it. "What have we got here?" she asked, making the small group notice that she had walked in the room. "Ah, Daring, you're here!" exclaimed one of them, an earth pony, "Good thing, too. We think we may have found something all the way over in the Old Ruins of Casaflanka." "Wait, what? How did you- what? But that's in Prance! How did you manage to find that!" "Well, we didn't technically find what we think we found yet. That's the problem. We detected traces of magic over there. It was a very old protection spell that we think was placed over the Ruins to guard something, and somepony or something may have accidentally triggered. We don't know exactly what it is yet, but based on the folklore in the area, we think it's something very old that most ponies would think doesn't exist. Tell me, Miss Do, have you ever heard of the legend of the Griffon's Goblet?" The Griffon's Goblet?, she thought. "Yeah, I've heard of it. You're not saying you found that, are you?" "No, I'm saying that we think we found it." The Griffon's Goblet. The legend said... Well, it was only sort of a legend, but it said that it (the Griffon's Goblet, that is) was embedded with the last four gems owned by the ancient Griffon King during the era of the Griffon Empire in Bridlain. The Empire had been ruled by griffons, and consisted of only griffons. It was a completely pony-free area, which was most likely why they had been failing so easily economically. No offense to griffons, of course, but the only thing they did with any valuables or riches they acquired they used to make sculptures and pretty cups and what-not. Well, because of this, they lost everything they had and had to start living like an ACTUAL ancient civilization, sending out hunting groups and what-not. Eventually the empire only owned four gemstones, and they belonged to the griffon emporer. Well, guess what he used them for? He embedded all four of them in a decorative goblet, which he then lost two years before the empire fell and the griffon's decided to live with ponies. For their own good. Any artifacts from the empire were moved to museums for the future (because the ponies were smart enough know that they would be valuable in the future), and a castle, Casaflanka, was built on the land, making it a very historical site. Before the griffons fell, though, they did have enough sense to know that the goblet was their most precious artifact and that it should be protected at all costs. So they hid it, nopony knows where, and it still is hidden to this day, somewhere under the Ruins of Casaflanka (The castle did not last long, for political reasons involving the two griffon statues that had been placed at the entrance to honor the empire that used to be there). "So, Daring, seeing as you did manage to recover the Sapphire Stone successfully after many others have failed, then the museum has decided to fund an expedition all the way to Prance for you and Doctor Whooves to go and find the Goblet. What do you say?" "Of course!" she responded. What, were you expecting her to take a long time thinking about and for me to write down her thought process as she came to the conclusion of yes? Well, I was too. But then I thought, she's Daring Do! Of course she would have said yes! Everypony knows that! Now, let's get on with it. So, in short, Daring Do and The Doctor Doctor Whooves left the next day on the Pegasus Airlines zeppelin they would be riding all the way to Prance. But, little did they know, somepony didn't want them to find the goblet. That somepony was already on the Zeppeline, watching them from behing a newspaper that was being held by their own clawed hands. Chapter 1Chapter 1 "What do you mean you don't have ParaSprite!? How do you not have ParaSprite!?! You're a luxury zeppeline airliner! Certainly you've got a case of them somewhere!" Doctor Whooves was currently having some sort of a small tantrum over the lack of his favorite soft drink for an entire three days on the flight to Prance aboard the Pegasus Airlines Liesure Suite First Class Zeppelin Speedy Transport. It didn't last very long until he was kicked in the shin and told to get over it by his Pegasus Airlines Liesure Suite First Class Zeppelin Speedy Transport partner, Daring Do. "Oh, get over yourself," she said, and kicked Whooves in the shins. He got over himself. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but you'll have to excuse him. He's been on a rather strict diet lately," she said. The stewardess just walked away, thinking about how little her job paid and why zeppelin airliners even existed when they had blimps and why she had dropped out of college so early. Daring went back to reading her Traveler's Guide to Prance: All the Sights You Want To See and Some You Don't!, and Whooves was researching the cultural habits of the inhabitants of Prance whilst simultaniously attempting to learn Prench. That's about it for anything they were doing in first-class. Of course, what's going on in first-class isn't always the most interesting thing on the zeppelin. I know, my metaphors aren't the best. One time I used this metaphor: "The paint can just sat there, like an inanimate object." I got rejected from the writing school I had applied for and am now stuck at my house writing fanfiction. Not really. I'm only ** years old. That's what would have happened, though. As I was saying, there was something much more interesting transpiring in another passenger's head over in business-class. Of course, usually the more interesting things on the zeppelin usually transpire in the lower classes anyways, where there aren't a bunch of snooty rich ponies sitting and sipping tea. Very good tea. Well, in this certain business-class passenger's head, there was a plot forming. Now, it wasn't a normal business-class passenger's type of plot that normally has to do with business-class transactions involving money, no this certain plot had a lot more to do with taking-over/desroying-the-world/some-piece-of-the-world than it did with acquiring valuable currencies in the art, if boring art, of trade. This certain plot was the kind of plot where the plotter was plotting to destroy not the world, but a small chunk of the world, although it was still a part of the world nonetheless, which still classified it as a "bad" sort of plot. This plot also included stopping somepony who could interfere with their precious plan (I have stopped using the word 'plot' in the hopes that it isn't too late to keep your minds out of the gutter). This certain somepony is a certain now-famous somepony as well, and this eing your typical novel, I can guess that you can guess who this certain somepony is, and can also guess that she is sitting in first-class learning Prench things. She is, of course, accompanied by another somepony, a stallion. But let's steer away for the second time from the boring happenings of the ponies taking first-class and get back to the plan, or as I will now begin to describe, the planner. You should be able to remember this planner from the end of the prologue, and that he had clawed hands, or to correct an earlier writing error, clawed paws. His name was Etienne Julien. He wasn't necessarily Prench, even though he and his people lived in Prance and that is where he was born; Etienne, was, in fact, a decendant of the old griffon empire described earlier, and so he should have an old-griffon-empire-ish sounding name, but his people had gotten so accustomed to the native culture and names that they all had forgotten what old-griffon-empire-ish sounding names sounded like. Now, by saying that they grew accustomed to native culture, that they left their secluded and magically hidden environment and mingled with the locals, no, I am only saying that when groups of them left said secluded environment to go hunt for food, then they ran into locals, and the locals wanted to mingle, and every time they did that, the hunting parties returned with a little more Prench knowledge, and over the large amount of time this has been happening, eventually the griffons became a little more Prench than they were ancient griffon. Now, I do realize that I should get back to Etienne and his plo- planning in the business-class seating on the zeppelin, but as I have already spent a rather long paragraph explaining some things, I might as well take the rest of the chapter and explain the rest of things as well, and just turn this from an eventful chapter to an informative chapter. Oh, relax yourself, I was already going to make the next chapter an informative chapter explaining the background anyways, as I am not the sort of author that explains nothing until the end and keeps the readers thinking "WHERE THE HAY DID THAT COME FROM!?" the entire story. So, I should probably start by explaining why there is even still a magically protected Griffon Empire when they were all economically wiped out years ago. Well, that's the thing... They weren't. I lied. You can't get angry at me, though, I am an author, after all, and you know how authors are! We're evil. We're completely diabolical. Who else but a diabolically evil person would take a lovable character and have the audience bond with them for a while, and then put them through a dangerous, life-threatening journey that puts them through a lot of pain and then usually kills off some of their friends/family (the previous statement was quoted from the book 'Alcatraz Vs. the Evil Librarians.'). Exactly. Another thing I should warn you about, is that authors are insane. Completely mentally challenged. The prime example of this would be Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Well, anyways, after the Griffon King, who's name is unknown, used up their last four gems on a fancy goblet, and later on the entire Empire just fell apart, all of the griffons dispersed and joined just-starting pony communities around the world and became an active, if economically challenged, part of the beginnings of a civilized society. Well... Almost all of them. One group of griffons remained at the site of the fallen Empire. This group consisted of thirteen griffons. These griffons consisted of what little was left of the already-small royal family, which was the Griffon King, his wife, and his single son, plus seven loyal royal guards and advisors and three citizens that stayed in the thoughts that they could rebuild their Empire into something new, something better than it was. One of the royal advisors did what they did best and advised the King that they needed a protection, something to keep them safe from the outside world, at least safe enough until they rebuilt the Empire. So the King sent out a couple of guards to go and capture a powerful unicorn and bring it back to them. They did what their ruler commanded, of course, except they did a little bit more than that. You see, the unicorn they brought back with them wasn't exactly a unicorn... The royal guards foalnapped a filly alicorn. Not only that, but they had, in fact, foalnapped a princess, the Princess of the Dawn, Solice. They had come acrost the filly rolling around in a field far from her parents and two regal sisters and giggling to herself over something that fillies who roll in fields like to giggle about. But her giggles weren't meant to last very long at all, as the two guards unsuspectingly pounced and sacked her, easily carrying her all the way back to their fallen empire. You may picture the filly as a young filly with not much experience with life, but being an alicorn blood princess, she is immortal, of course, and so even though she was the size of a seven-year-old foal, she was, in fact, already ninety-three years old and was rather knowledgeable in magic and knew how to use it well. When she was jumped, though, the guards had the element of surprise on their side, and actually used so much of it on Solice that she just passed out inside the bag. When they got back to the King, then he took the sack off of her head and left her in a dungeon (remember that the Empire had not fallen physically, and that the temple and everything was still standing) bound, though not gagged, and with her horn wrapped in a sort of leaf that stopped magic flow from the horn to anything outside the horn. It grew native to the Empire and they had discovered it's purpose once when a solitary unicorn had accidentally teleported straight into the temple and had to be taken care of immediately. Later, when Solice woke up, she was taken to a room and forced to cast a spell that placed a magical purple dome around the temple alone, since there were only thirteen current residents, and they all lived in the temple, which had been outlined with bushes full of the magic-stopping leaves while Solice was asleep, keeping her from reaching her magic out any farther than it needed to be for the protection, and left her locked in the room and chained against a wall to prevent physical escape, and kept her alive by feeding her food and water once a day. This continued for a short about fifty years, with the thirteen growing into thirty-two, the King's and Queen's physical health at its worst peak, the magic barrier being expanded to included houses that were built around the temple, which had run out of space to house thirty-two griffons, and Solice being kept and forced to renew the spell every month. Eventually, though, the Prench started expanding and exploring their own country, and the griffons were forced to move to avoid being discovered. Of course, by the time that the Griffon King realized that they would have to pack their things, it was much too late too demolish their temple and leave without a trace, and so they just took their small possessions and transferred everything, including the now-144-year-old Dawn Princess, deeper into the forest and also, so as to not run into the problem of discovery again. They did, though, at least have Solice lift the barrier from the temple before they left. All except for one area. There was one chamber that they had underground. It was a very secret chamber, as most underground chambers that need to be proteced are, and was guarded with a rock. The rock was guarded with a hall in front of it full of dastardly traps worse than some things you could imagine (although that would be because you are not, of course, cruel enough to imagine these traps as the Griffon King was). The chamber itsself contained a chest with three locks. Each of these locks needed to be opened with a key. The Griffon King, Queen, and Prince all had one of these keys. Inside the chest there was a locked box. The locked box could only be opened when the Griffon King himself inserted his left thumb- talon into a hole located beneath a hidden removeable panel on the bottom of the box (though it was only when the King was on his death-bed when he realized that there would be no way to open the box in case of emergency after he was gone, and so he cut his talon off himself and gave it to his son, telling him to pass it down only down the direct bloodline). So obviously, whatever was in this box was extremely important to the Griffon Empire. By this point in the explanation, you probably forgot about the Griffon's Goblet, didn't you? Well, that's what was in the box. Solice was made to cast the same protection spell over the room except with an extremely long-lasting duration. When she feebly attempted to protest that she A. didn't know that kind of magic and B. couldn't perform it anyways under her condition, they of course threatened her with death*. The spell she actually performed, though, was a normal protection spell that was the same one she had been using on the temple for the past fifty years. The griffon's didn't realize that, though, since they had left to a new location before the spell could have worn off. The Prench found the old temple, though they never even found the trap hallway guardin the Goblet. Of course, they were excited enough finding an ancient temple in a forest, and naturally preserved and displayed it and sent parts of it to history museums, so everything's OK there, really. Well, That's about it for the past, so let me snap back five hundred more years to the present and quickly state that at this moment in time**, the Griffon Empire isn't doing very well. As a matter of fact, it only consists of the present royal family, with the young King and Queen. The Empire had been running out of resources to feed 1,243 griffons (the Empire's peak population), and the forest around them was dwindling because of the lack of the resources they had been using. Despite what his advisors were telling him, though, the King insisted on sticking with the traditional survival ways, so nearly all of griffons just left and joined the community, just like the first time the Griffon Empire had fallen. So, there wasn't really even a Griffon Empire... Just a couple. An extremely desperate one. And they were at the point where they were willing to do anything to save their civilization. Well, there's an extraordinarily long bavkground on this story for you. I think I'm done here. At least for a couple of days. So... *insert funny/dramatic cliffhanger ending here*. Chapter 2Chapter 2 *WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED EVENTFUL CHAPTER* Etienne Julies was plotting. No, to correct a preious mistake for the second time, he was planning. He wasn't the sort of pony- or griffon, in this case- that you would see planning in his position. In fact, he was a king, and normally a king's royal advisors did all of the planning for him. Currently, though, he was in no position to have advisors plan for him, or you could say that the advisors were in no position to plan for him; that's because there were none. So Etienne had to plan for himself, and was rather good at it, too, unlike most other kings (this being the reason they needed advisors), as he had gone a long time without advisors, and had gotten accustomed to doing things on his own, including making plans. He also was very desperate, and had his entire (four-griffon) kingdom at stake. This was his plan. First things first, sabotage the zeppelin he was on and make sure that two specific ponies did not reach their destination. The rest of the zeppelin was of no concern to him, of course, only Daring Do and her companion, Doctor Whooves*, as they could easily wreck everything Etienne and his wife, Daring (I'm just kidding!) Adele Julies, had planned for and set up. Secondly, jump out of zeppelin with the parachute that he had bought for just this purpose, and then open the inflatable raft he had ALSO bought at the same store (it sold products for surviving post-apocalyptic settings) in mid-air and land on it, then row back to Prance to enact the rest of the plan, which would be getting back the Griffon's Goblet and melting down the 4 gems encrusted in the sides and mixing them up to create an elixer that grants the drinker invincibility, strength beyond any imaginable measure, and a very, VERY long life, and then forcing everypony to bow before him and his wife by holding the long-lost Dawn Princess for ransom. What, too fast? Well, let me back up a bit; the four gems in the Goblet? Turns out that three of them were the last of it's kind, and the last one has only two of it's kind left, and they were both held in top-security vaults in museums in Equestria, and visitors that go there are allowed to see the gems through video moniters. They're only this rare because of dragon overpopulation some two thousand years ago. Well, some pony historians had recently found evidence of some old neanderthal ponies that had supposedly mixed such a potion and had grown wings and a horn and lived for a good thousand years and reproduced before dying, eventually. So, that's where alicorns came from, and then that's what the gems on the cup are for. BACK TO THE EVENTFULNESS! While you were reading, Etienne Julies had snuck into the cargo hold with the classic excuse of having to use the bathroom, and then had snuck his way to the door that leads to a small balcony that was still inside the zeppelin, though it was right next to the outer skin, and it surrounded the first of a set of rungs leading to the very top of the outside of the zeppelin. Etienne made his way to the back of the top of the zeppelin (this is beginning to sound like that hole in the ocean song now, isn't it?) and found a hatch about fifteen yards away from the end of it, with the main propellers turning in an attempt to blow him off the side. Too late, as it took about thirty seconds to open the hatch with a blowtorch and a pair of wire cutters, enter, and close again. Now the setting was a catwalk that was hanging high above the cargo hold Etienne was just in. He would have flown up there, but due to a massive amount of wing neglect because Etienne did things the old-fashioned way all the time, he didn't know how to fly. Etienne followed the one main catwalk, which seemed to be the only one up there because there was really only one destination up there, to the one main destination that was the power box for the entire zeppelin** mounted to the wall. Using the same pair of wire cutters that he had used before, Etienne easily relieved the power maintenece box of it's lock and chain easily, and opened the box. There were many labeled switches in the box that were set up in rows instead of columns like we're used to. Next to each switch was a little red light, indicating that the section of the zeppelin the switch controlled was either on or off. At the top, there was one switch that was bigger than all the others that had a large green button next to it instead of a small red one like th others. It was labeled "Main Power", and so was obviously the switch that was in control of the entire zeppelin. Etienne flipped the switch. Chapter 3Chapter 3 "In a world- TZZZZZZT!!!" There was a sudden flash of light accompanied by the sound of static as all of the power in the enetire zeppelin just up and quit. Then there was darkness. And then there was a rumbling noise. "What the hay is going on!?" shouted Daring Do as multiple passengers' heads poked out into the aisle to see what the hay was, in fact, going on. Of course, nopony who knew what the hay was going on could not tell the passengers that, because those ponies were in the pilot's chamber at the front, and all the coms were off. Well, they were in the pilot's chamber. Until they jumped out with parachutes. So, there was nopony that could inform the passengers and the stewards/stewardesses, and the zeppelin chose now to start its slow nose-dive. Downwards. You know, towards the ocean. That's when everypony started to figure out what the hay was going on. I promise that was the last time I will use the phrase "what the hay was going on". Things in the luggage compartment started flying around without the aid of wings and ramming into ponies with a vengeance, as if they were angry at being over-packed with travel guides and underwear, a really unnecessary load of it, seeing as ponies didn't even wear clothes although it was a sort of an unspoken rule that when packing for a trip, there must ALWAYS be an unnecessary load of undergarments. Daring Do, though, of course had a bit more than her fair share of reflexes and instincts, and also had the mental capability to almost instantly analyze the direction of the continuously tilting floor, the downward motion of the entire zeppelin, and connect it to the loss of power, and realize that the zeppelin had shut down, and that it had not been an accident, for then the emergency turbines would have turned on. And so her instincts kicked in. "Let's go!" she shouted to Whooves over the din, and grabbed his whoof and started running before he could respond, stepping around the luggage that had already all fallen everywhere, and running up the steep incline that was getting harder and harder to run up as the zeppelin tilted even more and more so in its descent. They made it to about nine yards awway from the door that lead to the little room with the emergency exit and the doorway to another hall with multiple doors that led to a kitchen, the cargo hold, and such. But Daring wasn't there yet. She had actually started to fall backwards now that the floor was much too steep to trot on, and now had to fly upwards while still holding onto Whooves so that he didn't fall onto the pile of ponies that had congregated at the back wall like a barrel of monkeys. Daring wasn't used to carrying anything at all when she was flying, so now, carrying a full-grown stallion, she had to strain her wings to keep herself floating. Fortunately, that was all she had to do, since the zeppelin was falling down around her now like an elevator. Unfortunately, that also meant that after passing through the doorway they had been headed for, the back wall of the hallway behind said doorway was now rapidly approaching. Luckily, though, the whole thing didn't stop at nose-down, and it kept turning until it was at an upside-down slant that was barely level enough for Daring to land on with Whooves. The floor kept tilting until it was almost about level, and by that time she had stretched her hoof far enough to reach the door at the end which they had then jumped over the top of the wall and through, and had found themselves in a very small room with just a hole at the bottom leading down into the cargo hold. Unfortunaly though, since down was now up, that meant that the hole was now above them, which meant more flying for Daring- but only a minimal amount, seeing as there was a ladder that led down (up now) into the hold. So she flew Whooves up first and then ascended the ladder herself, so that he was above her and had a higher chance of being caught by the one with wings before falling. But by this time, there was no need for that, as the zeppelin had once more made a 45 degree flip and was facing straight nose-up, meaning the ladder was level, and they could now walk to the catwalk that would have been descended upon in normal circumstances, but now the rail was being used as a very narrow ledge for the two to shimmy across. Daring looked around to see if she could find anything that controlled the power, but she saw an exit at the ceiling of the hold, which extended all the way to the top of the airliner instead, and guessed that it led to the power. So when the environment had been flipped again to the normal, level position, she knew she had to get there before they were turned over again, or even before they hit the water, which they were getting close to now. So she grabbed Whooves' hoof and ran along the catwalks, weaving in and out, and making it to the hatch in record time for anypony, except for Rainbow Dash. But only barely. In the time it took to get into the hatch with the inner balcony, the thing had flipped again, providing them with a now-level wall to walk on all the way up to the outside exit. Daring cautiously opened the exit, keeping her back to the wall so as to not fall out in case of an unexpected jolt. Peering outside, she saw the horizon where the water met the sky was level to her, and looked up to see another hatch about fifteen yards away labeled simply "Power". She also noticed that the water was uncomfortably close by now, and that they were about to make their next turn, which would position their hatch and the power one upside down, which would make it much harder to fly to carrying one earth pony's weight. So immediately she once again picked up Whooves and flew as fast as she could with her worn-out wings upwards to the power hatch and found that, mercifully, somepony had already broken it open, and it swung forward immediately when she touched it with her nose. Before she had time, though to drag the both of them in there, it tilted AGAIN, pushing them back and positioning the hatch upside-down. So Daring struggled to flap her wings even harder, straining her everything as she tried to pull herself and another into the opening above. She didn't manage to do anything but stay in the same spot in the air, though, so when the airliner swung sideways again, the hole in the roof just passed right around them, and they were in the power room. Daring dropped almost immediately on the wall at the bottom, taking a moment to catch her breath, as Whooves looked up at the power box with its door barely hanging onto the hinges. He climbed onto a sideway shelf and from there to the side of a metal container of some sort to see all of the levers and lights next to them, and saw the obvious problem: Somepony had turned off the main power, and the emergency power, and every other power inbetween. And so Whooves provided for the obvious solution to the obvious problem: He turned all the switches back on. Just in time as well, for the ship had turned to it's natural position just as the turbines had started working again, and was now sailing straight forward, towards whatever direction straight forward was, although it was stuck on autopilot and therefore positioned only 1.5 miles above the Equestrian Sea, and if they ran out of fuel, they were all screwed. Luckily though, none of that happened, because there was a trained zeppelin pilot on board, who was more than capable of flying them to the Prance docking station. Back to Daring Do, though, she and Whooves had climbed the ladder (normally) out of the power room, and were walking on the top of the ship when it gave out one little involuntary shudder, one little jolt with them standing on it, a jolt that, if it were enough, they would lose their footing and fall. It was enough.
A/NCopyright Page Copyright 0110 by Slender Pony All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Equestrian Copyright Act of 0011, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a databarn or retrieval system, without the prior hoof-written permission of the publisher. Slender Reading Co. Haychette Book Group 237 Barn Avenue, New Horse, NH 10017 www.FiMfiction.com Slender Reading Company is a division of Haychette Book Group, Inc. The Slender Reading Company name and logo are trademarks of Haychette Book Group, Inc. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. First Paperback Edition: May 0110 First published in hardcover in July 0100 by Slender Reading Co. The ponies and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real ponies, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. In the event a real name is used, it is used fictitiously. Library of Congress Coltaloging-in-Publication Data Pony, Slender. Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet / Slender Pony. --- 1st ed. p. cm. --- (Daring Do) Summary: Since you don't know what this is about, I can't give out my smart-aleck summary, can I? Well, I'm not exactly sure what this is about yet either, and since I doubt you'e reading this anyways, then I'll just say that there willl be: Daring Do, something called a "Griffon's Goblet" (I know. Can Griffon's own goblets?), some villain with an unpronouncable that will be a Griffon (Duh), maybe with a pet gargoyle griffon, I don't know, and there will also be some OC's this time. No Mary Sues or Self Inserts, don't worry. ISBN 978-0-316-03698-7(hc) / 978-0-316-03830-1 (pb) [1. Talking Ponies-Fiction. 2. Talking ponies with wings-Fiction. 3. You actually reading this-Fiction. 4. Some sort of long-lost goblet shrouded in fog that apparently is only used by griffons-Fiction. 5. A FRIGGIN’ WINGED TALKING PONY!-Fiction. 6. Some sort of villain that wants to take over a world filled with magical talking ponies-Fiction. 7. A Stone Griffon-Fiction.] I. Pony, Slender II. Title. PZ7.Y25673Dl 2010 [Fic] ---- dc22 7777777777 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 RBD-S Printed in the United Towns and Cities of Equestria Dedications 1. To the Aviators, because they are awesome. 2. To Lauren Faust. You know why. 3. To all sheep, because you remind me of Coco, my big standard poodle. 4. To Coco, because you remind me of the sheep that remind me of you. And you are also awesome. 5. To Scootaloo: STAY AWAY FROM KFC! 6. To KFC: STAY AWAY FROM SCOOTALOO! 7. And now, a very serious and sincere one, to anybody who reads this and likes it, because you are the ones that made any of this possible. I know it sounds cheesy and all, but without anybody to read this story and enjoy it, this story wouldn’t exist. And I would be the only person left on Earth. ;..( Table of Contents Prologue Random number of unnamed chapters that I don't know the amount of yet Epilogue (maybe)
PrologueDaring Do and the Griffon's Goblet Prologue "And that, young foals, is the legend of the Sapphire Stone." Daring Do scanned the faces of the pupils in Mr. Book's class. They were all staring up at Daring as if she were something more legendary than the Stone itself - Which, in a way, she was. Daring Do (Miss Do, to the students, of course) was giving them all a tour of the Museum of Natural Equestrian History, where she currently worked, and their field trip was nearly over. Daring had just finished telling them about the legendary Sapphire Stone, which had been lost for a great while before Daring Do herself had ventured into the Everfree Forest and retrieved it from the talons of Ahuizotle, an evil jackal-thing that wanted the Stone for himself. "Any questions?" asked Daring. For a few minutes, nopony said anything. "Wow." As soon as one of them, a pegasus colt, broke the the silent spell, all hooves were raised. Daring was used to this reaction; she pointed at a blue-maned earth pony and said, "You first." "Oh, well, um, were you attacked by any monsters before the tiger and stuff?" "Oh, yeah, I did have to outrun a giant Scorpio. If it weren't for the close proximity of the trees, it would've caught up to me like that." Do answered, punctuated the sentence with a clapping of her hooves. "Next... You!" Daring chose a purple unicorn filly. "What's a Scorpio? It sounds horrible!" The unicorn said. "Ah... Well, have any of you heard of an Ursa Major or Minor?" "OOH! I have! Um, an Ursa Major is, um, in the constellation family, which is, um, a group of really big animals that are made of stars. I think." "That's correct! Well, a Scorpio is a giant red scorpion constellation. Fortunately, it wasn't used to the thickness of the part of the Everfree I was in, so I was able to outrun it. No biggie, though. Anybody else? How about you?" This time it was a purple-maned, black-coated unicorn with glasses and a vest. "How deep into the Everfree did you go?" "Straight to the heart of it. That's where the temple with the Stone was. Yes, did you have one?" She asked another pegasus this time. "Did you die?" "Oh... Um... Yeah, sure. So, is there anybody else that-" "Excuse me, Miss Do." Daring turned around to face an earth pony with a brown coat and mane with an hourglass cutie mark. "Oh, um excuse me for a second, children. Mr. Whooves, I'm kind of busy at the moment, what do you want?" "Well, the rest of the architectural team said they may have figured something extremely important, and that it would be best if you came urgently. And don't worry, I've already got Manny ready to take over the class." "Oh. Well, I guess I had better go see what it is then." Daring turned around to face the children again. "Well, it looks like I'm needed over in the Historical Discoveries department, so I'm going to have to leave you with Manny!" The children groaned and moaned, but Daring was already following Doctor Whooves into a hallway just off the Crystal Sea exhibits. Down the hall, seventh door on the left, was the Histtorical Discoveries room, where the architectural team (which included Daring Do) went when they found something. Daring opened the door and stepped inside, where the rest of the team were gathered around a table with a map sitting on it. "What have we got here?" she asked, making the small group notice that she had walked in the room. "Ah, Daring, you're here!" exclaimed one of them, an earth pony, "Good thing, too. We think we may have found something all the way over in the Old Ruins of Casaflanka." "Wait, what? How did you- what? But that's in Prance! How did you manage to find that!" "Well, we didn't technically find what we think we found yet. That's the problem. We detected traces of magic over there. It was a very old protection spell that we think was placed over the Ruins to guard something, and somepony or something may have accidentally triggered. We don't know exactly what it is yet, but based on the folklore in the area, we think it's something very old that most ponies would think doesn't exist. Tell me, Miss Do, have you ever heard of the legend of the Griffon's Goblet?" The Griffon's Goblet?, she thought. "Yeah, I've heard of it. You're not saying you found that, are you?" "No, I'm saying that we think we found it." The Griffon's Goblet. The legend said... Well, it was only sort of a legend, but it said that it (the Griffon's Goblet, that is) was embedded with the last four gems owned by the ancient Griffon King during the era of the Griffon Empire in Bridlain. The Empire had been ruled by griffons, and consisted of only griffons. It was a completely pony-free area, which was most likely why they had been failing so easily economically. No offense to griffons, of course, but the only thing they did with any valuables or riches they acquired they used to make sculptures and pretty cups and what-not. Well, because of this, they lost everything they had and had to start living like an ACTUAL ancient civilization, sending out hunting groups and what-not. Eventually the empire only owned four gemstones, and they belonged to the griffon emporer. Well, guess what he used them for? He embedded all four of them in a decorative goblet, which he then lost two years before the empire fell and the griffon's decided to live with ponies. For their own good. Any artifacts from the empire were moved to museums for the future (because the ponies were smart enough know that they would be valuable in the future), and a castle, Casaflanka, was built on the land, making it a very historical site. Before the griffons fell, though, they did have enough sense to know that the goblet was their most precious artifact and that it should be protected at all costs. So they hid it, nopony knows where, and it still is hidden to this day, somewhere under the Ruins of Casaflanka (The castle did not last long, for political reasons involving the two griffon statues that had been placed at the entrance to honor the empire that used to be there). "So, Daring, seeing as you did manage to recover the Sapphire Stone successfully after many others have failed, then the museum has decided to fund an expedition all the way to Prance for you and Doctor Whooves to go and find the Goblet. What do you say?" "Of course!" she responded. What, were you expecting her to take a long time thinking about and for me to write down her thought process as she came to the conclusion of yes? Well, I was too. But then I thought, she's Daring Do! Of course she would have said yes! Everypony knows that! Now, let's get on with it. So, in short, Daring Do and The Doctor Doctor Whooves left the next day on the Pegasus Airlines zeppelin they would be riding all the way to Prance. But, little did they know, somepony didn't want them to find the goblet. That somepony was already on the Zeppeline, watching them from behing a newspaper that was being held by their own clawed hands.
Chapter 1Chapter 1 "What do you mean you don't have ParaSprite!? How do you not have ParaSprite!?! You're a luxury zeppeline airliner! Certainly you've got a case of them somewhere!" Doctor Whooves was currently having some sort of a small tantrum over the lack of his favorite soft drink for an entire three days on the flight to Prance aboard the Pegasus Airlines Liesure Suite First Class Zeppelin Speedy Transport. It didn't last very long until he was kicked in the shin and told to get over it by his Pegasus Airlines Liesure Suite First Class Zeppelin Speedy Transport partner, Daring Do. "Oh, get over yourself," she said, and kicked Whooves in the shins. He got over himself. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but you'll have to excuse him. He's been on a rather strict diet lately," she said. The stewardess just walked away, thinking about how little her job paid and why zeppelin airliners even existed when they had blimps and why she had dropped out of college so early. Daring went back to reading her Traveler's Guide to Prance: All the Sights You Want To See and Some You Don't!, and Whooves was researching the cultural habits of the inhabitants of Prance whilst simultaniously attempting to learn Prench. That's about it for anything they were doing in first-class. Of course, what's going on in first-class isn't always the most interesting thing on the zeppelin. I know, my metaphors aren't the best. One time I used this metaphor: "The paint can just sat there, like an inanimate object." I got rejected from the writing school I had applied for and am now stuck at my house writing fanfiction. Not really. I'm only ** years old. That's what would have happened, though. As I was saying, there was something much more interesting transpiring in another passenger's head over in business-class. Of course, usually the more interesting things on the zeppelin usually transpire in the lower classes anyways, where there aren't a bunch of snooty rich ponies sitting and sipping tea. Very good tea. Well, in this certain business-class passenger's head, there was a plot forming. Now, it wasn't a normal business-class passenger's type of plot that normally has to do with business-class transactions involving money, no this certain plot had a lot more to do with taking-over/desroying-the-world/some-piece-of-the-world than it did with acquiring valuable currencies in the art, if boring art, of trade. This certain plot was the kind of plot where the plotter was plotting to destroy not the world, but a small chunk of the world, although it was still a part of the world nonetheless, which still classified it as a "bad" sort of plot. This plot also included stopping somepony who could interfere with their precious plan (I have stopped using the word 'plot' in the hopes that it isn't too late to keep your minds out of the gutter). This certain somepony is a certain now-famous somepony as well, and this eing your typical novel, I can guess that you can guess who this certain somepony is, and can also guess that she is sitting in first-class learning Prench things. She is, of course, accompanied by another somepony, a stallion. But let's steer away for the second time from the boring happenings of the ponies taking first-class and get back to the plan, or as I will now begin to describe, the planner. You should be able to remember this planner from the end of the prologue, and that he had clawed hands, or to correct an earlier writing error, clawed paws. His name was Etienne Julien. He wasn't necessarily Prench, even though he and his people lived in Prance and that is where he was born; Etienne, was, in fact, a decendant of the old griffon empire described earlier, and so he should have an old-griffon-empire-ish sounding name, but his people had gotten so accustomed to the native culture and names that they all had forgotten what old-griffon-empire-ish sounding names sounded like. Now, by saying that they grew accustomed to native culture, that they left their secluded and magically hidden environment and mingled with the locals, no, I am only saying that when groups of them left said secluded environment to go hunt for food, then they ran into locals, and the locals wanted to mingle, and every time they did that, the hunting parties returned with a little more Prench knowledge, and over the large amount of time this has been happening, eventually the griffons became a little more Prench than they were ancient griffon. Now, I do realize that I should get back to Etienne and his plo- planning in the business-class seating on the zeppelin, but as I have already spent a rather long paragraph explaining some things, I might as well take the rest of the chapter and explain the rest of things as well, and just turn this from an eventful chapter to an informative chapter. Oh, relax yourself, I was already going to make the next chapter an informative chapter explaining the background anyways, as I am not the sort of author that explains nothing until the end and keeps the readers thinking "WHERE THE HAY DID THAT COME FROM!?" the entire story. So, I should probably start by explaining why there is even still a magically protected Griffon Empire when they were all economically wiped out years ago. Well, that's the thing... They weren't. I lied. You can't get angry at me, though, I am an author, after all, and you know how authors are! We're evil. We're completely diabolical. Who else but a diabolically evil person would take a lovable character and have the audience bond with them for a while, and then put them through a dangerous, life-threatening journey that puts them through a lot of pain and then usually kills off some of their friends/family (the previous statement was quoted from the book 'Alcatraz Vs. the Evil Librarians.'). Exactly. Another thing I should warn you about, is that authors are insane. Completely mentally challenged. The prime example of this would be Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Well, anyways, after the Griffon King, who's name is unknown, used up their last four gems on a fancy goblet, and later on the entire Empire just fell apart, all of the griffons dispersed and joined just-starting pony communities around the world and became an active, if economically challenged, part of the beginnings of a civilized society. Well... Almost all of them. One group of griffons remained at the site of the fallen Empire. This group consisted of thirteen griffons. These griffons consisted of what little was left of the already-small royal family, which was the Griffon King, his wife, and his single son, plus seven loyal royal guards and advisors and three citizens that stayed in the thoughts that they could rebuild their Empire into something new, something better than it was. One of the royal advisors did what they did best and advised the King that they needed a protection, something to keep them safe from the outside world, at least safe enough until they rebuilt the Empire. So the King sent out a couple of guards to go and capture a powerful unicorn and bring it back to them. They did what their ruler commanded, of course, except they did a little bit more than that. You see, the unicorn they brought back with them wasn't exactly a unicorn... The royal guards foalnapped a filly alicorn. Not only that, but they had, in fact, foalnapped a princess, the Princess of the Dawn, Solice. They had come acrost the filly rolling around in a field far from her parents and two regal sisters and giggling to herself over something that fillies who roll in fields like to giggle about. But her giggles weren't meant to last very long at all, as the two guards unsuspectingly pounced and sacked her, easily carrying her all the way back to their fallen empire. You may picture the filly as a young filly with not much experience with life, but being an alicorn blood princess, she is immortal, of course, and so even though she was the size of a seven-year-old foal, she was, in fact, already ninety-three years old and was rather knowledgeable in magic and knew how to use it well. When she was jumped, though, the guards had the element of surprise on their side, and actually used so much of it on Solice that she just passed out inside the bag. When they got back to the King, then he took the sack off of her head and left her in a dungeon (remember that the Empire had not fallen physically, and that the temple and everything was still standing) bound, though not gagged, and with her horn wrapped in a sort of leaf that stopped magic flow from the horn to anything outside the horn. It grew native to the Empire and they had discovered it's purpose once when a solitary unicorn had accidentally teleported straight into the temple and had to be taken care of immediately. Later, when Solice woke up, she was taken to a room and forced to cast a spell that placed a magical purple dome around the temple alone, since there were only thirteen current residents, and they all lived in the temple, which had been outlined with bushes full of the magic-stopping leaves while Solice was asleep, keeping her from reaching her magic out any farther than it needed to be for the protection, and left her locked in the room and chained against a wall to prevent physical escape, and kept her alive by feeding her food and water once a day. This continued for a short about fifty years, with the thirteen growing into thirty-two, the King's and Queen's physical health at its worst peak, the magic barrier being expanded to included houses that were built around the temple, which had run out of space to house thirty-two griffons, and Solice being kept and forced to renew the spell every month. Eventually, though, the Prench started expanding and exploring their own country, and the griffons were forced to move to avoid being discovered. Of course, by the time that the Griffon King realized that they would have to pack their things, it was much too late too demolish their temple and leave without a trace, and so they just took their small possessions and transferred everything, including the now-144-year-old Dawn Princess, deeper into the forest and also, so as to not run into the problem of discovery again. They did, though, at least have Solice lift the barrier from the temple before they left. All except for one area. There was one chamber that they had underground. It was a very secret chamber, as most underground chambers that need to be proteced are, and was guarded with a rock. The rock was guarded with a hall in front of it full of dastardly traps worse than some things you could imagine (although that would be because you are not, of course, cruel enough to imagine these traps as the Griffon King was). The chamber itsself contained a chest with three locks. Each of these locks needed to be opened with a key. The Griffon King, Queen, and Prince all had one of these keys. Inside the chest there was a locked box. The locked box could only be opened when the Griffon King himself inserted his left thumb- talon into a hole located beneath a hidden removeable panel on the bottom of the box (though it was only when the King was on his death-bed when he realized that there would be no way to open the box in case of emergency after he was gone, and so he cut his talon off himself and gave it to his son, telling him to pass it down only down the direct bloodline). So obviously, whatever was in this box was extremely important to the Griffon Empire. By this point in the explanation, you probably forgot about the Griffon's Goblet, didn't you? Well, that's what was in the box. Solice was made to cast the same protection spell over the room except with an extremely long-lasting duration. When she feebly attempted to protest that she A. didn't know that kind of magic and B. couldn't perform it anyways under her condition, they of course threatened her with death*. The spell she actually performed, though, was a normal protection spell that was the same one she had been using on the temple for the past fifty years. The griffon's didn't realize that, though, since they had left to a new location before the spell could have worn off. The Prench found the old temple, though they never even found the trap hallway guardin the Goblet. Of course, they were excited enough finding an ancient temple in a forest, and naturally preserved and displayed it and sent parts of it to history museums, so everything's OK there, really. Well, That's about it for the past, so let me snap back five hundred more years to the present and quickly state that at this moment in time**, the Griffon Empire isn't doing very well. As a matter of fact, it only consists of the present royal family, with the young King and Queen. The Empire had been running out of resources to feed 1,243 griffons (the Empire's peak population), and the forest around them was dwindling because of the lack of the resources they had been using. Despite what his advisors were telling him, though, the King insisted on sticking with the traditional survival ways, so nearly all of griffons just left and joined the community, just like the first time the Griffon Empire had fallen. So, there wasn't really even a Griffon Empire... Just a couple. An extremely desperate one. And they were at the point where they were willing to do anything to save their civilization. Well, there's an extraordinarily long bavkground on this story for you. I think I'm done here. At least for a couple of days. So... *insert funny/dramatic cliffhanger ending here*.
Chapter 2Chapter 2 *WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED EVENTFUL CHAPTER* Etienne Julies was plotting. No, to correct a preious mistake for the second time, he was planning. He wasn't the sort of pony- or griffon, in this case- that you would see planning in his position. In fact, he was a king, and normally a king's royal advisors did all of the planning for him. Currently, though, he was in no position to have advisors plan for him, or you could say that the advisors were in no position to plan for him; that's because there were none. So Etienne had to plan for himself, and was rather good at it, too, unlike most other kings (this being the reason they needed advisors), as he had gone a long time without advisors, and had gotten accustomed to doing things on his own, including making plans. He also was very desperate, and had his entire (four-griffon) kingdom at stake. This was his plan. First things first, sabotage the zeppelin he was on and make sure that two specific ponies did not reach their destination. The rest of the zeppelin was of no concern to him, of course, only Daring Do and her companion, Doctor Whooves*, as they could easily wreck everything Etienne and his wife, Daring (I'm just kidding!) Adele Julies, had planned for and set up. Secondly, jump out of zeppelin with the parachute that he had bought for just this purpose, and then open the inflatable raft he had ALSO bought at the same store (it sold products for surviving post-apocalyptic settings) in mid-air and land on it, then row back to Prance to enact the rest of the plan, which would be getting back the Griffon's Goblet and melting down the 4 gems encrusted in the sides and mixing them up to create an elixer that grants the drinker invincibility, strength beyond any imaginable measure, and a very, VERY long life, and then forcing everypony to bow before him and his wife by holding the long-lost Dawn Princess for ransom. What, too fast? Well, let me back up a bit; the four gems in the Goblet? Turns out that three of them were the last of it's kind, and the last one has only two of it's kind left, and they were both held in top-security vaults in museums in Equestria, and visitors that go there are allowed to see the gems through video moniters. They're only this rare because of dragon overpopulation some two thousand years ago. Well, some pony historians had recently found evidence of some old neanderthal ponies that had supposedly mixed such a potion and had grown wings and a horn and lived for a good thousand years and reproduced before dying, eventually. So, that's where alicorns came from, and then that's what the gems on the cup are for. BACK TO THE EVENTFULNESS! While you were reading, Etienne Julies had snuck into the cargo hold with the classic excuse of having to use the bathroom, and then had snuck his way to the door that leads to a small balcony that was still inside the zeppelin, though it was right next to the outer skin, and it surrounded the first of a set of rungs leading to the very top of the outside of the zeppelin. Etienne made his way to the back of the top of the zeppelin (this is beginning to sound like that hole in the ocean song now, isn't it?) and found a hatch about fifteen yards away from the end of it, with the main propellers turning in an attempt to blow him off the side. Too late, as it took about thirty seconds to open the hatch with a blowtorch and a pair of wire cutters, enter, and close again. Now the setting was a catwalk that was hanging high above the cargo hold Etienne was just in. He would have flown up there, but due to a massive amount of wing neglect because Etienne did things the old-fashioned way all the time, he didn't know how to fly. Etienne followed the one main catwalk, which seemed to be the only one up there because there was really only one destination up there, to the one main destination that was the power box for the entire zeppelin** mounted to the wall. Using the same pair of wire cutters that he had used before, Etienne easily relieved the power maintenece box of it's lock and chain easily, and opened the box. There were many labeled switches in the box that were set up in rows instead of columns like we're used to. Next to each switch was a little red light, indicating that the section of the zeppelin the switch controlled was either on or off. At the top, there was one switch that was bigger than all the others that had a large green button next to it instead of a small red one like th others. It was labeled "Main Power", and so was obviously the switch that was in control of the entire zeppelin. Etienne flipped the switch.
Chapter 3Chapter 3 "In a world- TZZZZZZT!!!" There was a sudden flash of light accompanied by the sound of static as all of the power in the enetire zeppelin just up and quit. Then there was darkness. And then there was a rumbling noise. "What the hay is going on!?" shouted Daring Do as multiple passengers' heads poked out into the aisle to see what the hay was, in fact, going on. Of course, nopony who knew what the hay was going on could not tell the passengers that, because those ponies were in the pilot's chamber at the front, and all the coms were off. Well, they were in the pilot's chamber. Until they jumped out with parachutes. So, there was nopony that could inform the passengers and the stewards/stewardesses, and the zeppelin chose now to start its slow nose-dive. Downwards. You know, towards the ocean. That's when everypony started to figure out what the hay was going on. I promise that was the last time I will use the phrase "what the hay was going on". Things in the luggage compartment started flying around without the aid of wings and ramming into ponies with a vengeance, as if they were angry at being over-packed with travel guides and underwear, a really unnecessary load of it, seeing as ponies didn't even wear clothes although it was a sort of an unspoken rule that when packing for a trip, there must ALWAYS be an unnecessary load of undergarments. Daring Do, though, of course had a bit more than her fair share of reflexes and instincts, and also had the mental capability to almost instantly analyze the direction of the continuously tilting floor, the downward motion of the entire zeppelin, and connect it to the loss of power, and realize that the zeppelin had shut down, and that it had not been an accident, for then the emergency turbines would have turned on. And so her instincts kicked in. "Let's go!" she shouted to Whooves over the din, and grabbed his whoof and started running before he could respond, stepping around the luggage that had already all fallen everywhere, and running up the steep incline that was getting harder and harder to run up as the zeppelin tilted even more and more so in its descent. They made it to about nine yards awway from the door that lead to the little room with the emergency exit and the doorway to another hall with multiple doors that led to a kitchen, the cargo hold, and such. But Daring wasn't there yet. She had actually started to fall backwards now that the floor was much too steep to trot on, and now had to fly upwards while still holding onto Whooves so that he didn't fall onto the pile of ponies that had congregated at the back wall like a barrel of monkeys. Daring wasn't used to carrying anything at all when she was flying, so now, carrying a full-grown stallion, she had to strain her wings to keep herself floating. Fortunately, that was all she had to do, since the zeppelin was falling down around her now like an elevator. Unfortunately, that also meant that after passing through the doorway they had been headed for, the back wall of the hallway behind said doorway was now rapidly approaching. Luckily, though, the whole thing didn't stop at nose-down, and it kept turning until it was at an upside-down slant that was barely level enough for Daring to land on with Whooves. The floor kept tilting until it was almost about level, and by that time she had stretched her hoof far enough to reach the door at the end which they had then jumped over the top of the wall and through, and had found themselves in a very small room with just a hole at the bottom leading down into the cargo hold. Unfortunaly though, since down was now up, that meant that the hole was now above them, which meant more flying for Daring- but only a minimal amount, seeing as there was a ladder that led down (up now) into the hold. So she flew Whooves up first and then ascended the ladder herself, so that he was above her and had a higher chance of being caught by the one with wings before falling. But by this time, there was no need for that, as the zeppelin had once more made a 45 degree flip and was facing straight nose-up, meaning the ladder was level, and they could now walk to the catwalk that would have been descended upon in normal circumstances, but now the rail was being used as a very narrow ledge for the two to shimmy across. Daring looked around to see if she could find anything that controlled the power, but she saw an exit at the ceiling of the hold, which extended all the way to the top of the airliner instead, and guessed that it led to the power. So when the environment had been flipped again to the normal, level position, she knew she had to get there before they were turned over again, or even before they hit the water, which they were getting close to now. So she grabbed Whooves' hoof and ran along the catwalks, weaving in and out, and making it to the hatch in record time for anypony, except for Rainbow Dash. But only barely. In the time it took to get into the hatch with the inner balcony, the thing had flipped again, providing them with a now-level wall to walk on all the way up to the outside exit. Daring cautiously opened the exit, keeping her back to the wall so as to not fall out in case of an unexpected jolt. Peering outside, she saw the horizon where the water met the sky was level to her, and looked up to see another hatch about fifteen yards away labeled simply "Power". She also noticed that the water was uncomfortably close by now, and that they were about to make their next turn, which would position their hatch and the power one upside down, which would make it much harder to fly to carrying one earth pony's weight. So immediately she once again picked up Whooves and flew as fast as she could with her worn-out wings upwards to the power hatch and found that, mercifully, somepony had already broken it open, and it swung forward immediately when she touched it with her nose. Before she had time, though to drag the both of them in there, it tilted AGAIN, pushing them back and positioning the hatch upside-down. So Daring struggled to flap her wings even harder, straining her everything as she tried to pull herself and another into the opening above. She didn't manage to do anything but stay in the same spot in the air, though, so when the airliner swung sideways again, the hole in the roof just passed right around them, and they were in the power room. Daring dropped almost immediately on the wall at the bottom, taking a moment to catch her breath, as Whooves looked up at the power box with its door barely hanging onto the hinges. He climbed onto a sideway shelf and from there to the side of a metal container of some sort to see all of the levers and lights next to them, and saw the obvious problem: Somepony had turned off the main power, and the emergency power, and every other power inbetween. And so Whooves provided for the obvious solution to the obvious problem: He turned all the switches back on. Just in time as well, for the ship had turned to it's natural position just as the turbines had started working again, and was now sailing straight forward, towards whatever direction straight forward was, although it was stuck on autopilot and therefore positioned only 1.5 miles above the Equestrian Sea, and if they ran out of fuel, they were all screwed. Luckily though, none of that happened, because there was a trained zeppelin pilot on board, who was more than capable of flying them to the Prance docking station. Back to Daring Do, though, she and Whooves had climbed the ladder (normally) out of the power room, and were walking on the top of the ship when it gave out one little involuntary shudder, one little jolt with them standing on it, a jolt that, if it were enough, they would lose their footing and fall. It was enough.
