Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet

Daring 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.