Daring Do and the ... Temple
Do I really need a disclaimer? Fine. The ponies are Hasbro’s and Faust’s. Temple Run is Isanagi Studios or something Blah Blah Blah. If you're gonna read, go read. Constructive criticism would be nice. Otherwise, continue raising the "view" counter by one. Thanks.
“Hrrk!”
The titular tan pegasus hauled her way up a zipline. She would’ve flown in herself, but for some reason she couldn’t fly. She noticed this effect the deeper she went into the maze within the temple. The magicks were probably placed to make it harder to escape with the secrets the temple held. She had heard many stories of other explorers going in and never coming out. She gritted her teeth. No way would she let that happen.
Daring grabbed the last foot of rope and hopped on to the last landing. The maze was almost childishly easy to get in; the paths all pointed to the center. As long as you followed the pattern, you had to end up in the center. Do anything else and you end up outside again. As a precaution, she had left fat red line of paint behind. If she couldn’t see it, then she probably deserved to die. She took a deep breath and walked into the shadows of the tunnel.
Once within, she noticed that there were practically no light sources. Fortunately, she was prepared for dark places. She reached into her saddlebags and pulled out a lamp. With a bit of effort, she lit the candle inside and went deeper into the temple.
After about a minute of walking, she came upon a large, circular room. The light of her lamp made the dusty idol shine. On the far side of the chamber there stood a large statue of some sort of bipedal demon. It had massive arms, stubby legs, and what looked like a lizard skull for a head. She poked it a few times; it felt and sounded like rock, so she decided to focus on the idol.
The thing wasn’t much to speak of. It had a weird face and seemed to be sitting. There didn’t appear to be any pressure sensors on the tiny golden object. Daring shrugged, then carefully picked up the statue. She blinked her eyes. Directly underneath the idol, covered by its profile, there was a tiny word inscribed. She squinted at it. It read “PLAY.” A heavy rumble shook the entire building, dazing her senses. When the shaking finally stopped, there was a large shadow standing over her. She spun in place and nearly screamed. The demon had come alive!
It shook itself as if coming out of a long sleep and glared angrily at her through glowing eye sockets. It reached out for her, but her reflexes managed to save her. She quickly rolled out of the way and ran for the exit, dropping the idol in her bag as she went. Howling in rage, the demon clumsily raced to keep up. She squinted slightly at the change in light levels, but soon managed to outpace the oversized monkey. She tried flapping her wings a few times, but was still met with the unsatisfying result of nothing. She could jump a decent distance by gliding, though. Hopefully it would be enough.
A few seconds after leaving the entrance, she jumped onto the zipline. Immediately, she felt something was wrong. The zipline she climbed up on was straight. This one was curved, which seemed to defy all laws of physics. She felt as if she could turn in any direction she wanted. She reached the end and hopped off. A few seconds of hard running made her notice the second inconsistency. She couldn’t feel the burn in her legs, at least not very noticeably. That should be a good thing.
The third inconsistency scared her the most. Her red lines were missing.
“Oh dear,” she squeaked. A quick glance behind her showed the demon gliding behind her, going through all the obstacles. Damn cheater she thought as she hopped over a wheel of spikes. She settled into a comfortable rhythm and ran.
This was getting ridiculous. No temple could be this big. It was most definitely not this big when she entered. She had been running at a near full sprint for the past eight minutes, and did not feel a bit of strain at all. There were also random potions lying around the pathways. She was a bit wary of using them at first, but found them to have brief, if magical effects. One summoned up a one use shield around her. She drank it when she was stuck in a bind. She tried to slow the demon down by tripping it under the effects, but it soon caught up again. She decided to just keep on running.
The second potion allowed her to fly down the path at near Sonic Rainboom speeds, plowing her way through any obstacle. It was a bit of a shame to have to see such old monuments get knocked down, but she rather prefer to survive a bit longer.
A third potion gave her temporary cloud summoning powers. It was the only pegasus ability she could use within the temple, and it irked her to no end that it only lasted for about ten clouds before she lost the feeling again. It was mainly used to jump broken paths or take alternative routes that couldn’t be reached by mere jumping. She got creative once and managed to coax a thunderbolt out to blow up a tree.
She sighed at the entrance to another mineshaft. They were annoying to navigate. She had to use one of those weird purple gems to teleport back onto the path. She wasn’t sure of their purpose at first, but after picking up the potions and discovering their effects, she decided to pick up the gems too. It saved her ass at least twice now, allowing her to recover from lethal pits. She idly thought about all these things as she leaned into the curve, against any common sense.
Half a minute later, she came back out and went back to running. Seeing more pathways. she considered the temple’s traps. Maybe this was a test? It could explain why nopony ever escaped this place. The damn place appeared to be infinitely big. Probably Discord’s fault. She turned a corner but lost her footing and slid off the path. “Ah crud, not again. She reached into her bag and - “Well,” she muttered, staring into her bag. “this sucks.” She fell down into the all encompassing fog, probably never to be seen again.
Rainbow screamed in frustration when a side swipe got misinterpreted as a jump and flung the phone onto her bed. “So close! I was 500 points away from ten million!” She tore at her chromatic hair for a few minutes, rolling around. After she caught her breath, she steeled herself and picked up the phone again. “Not gonna lose to her. No way,” she growled. She flicked through a few screens and...
... growled as her tan coated hoof picked up the idol.
Author's Note
Buy a Gryphon for 10000 bits
Buy a Bat pony for 15000 Bits
Buy an Apple Bloom for 20000 Bits