Daring Do and the Cloud-Held Eternity

by Trivial

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

The stairway had been a long one, going at least several stories deep into the center of the Governing Cloud. Daring stood at the bottom of the stairway and examined the room before her, which appeared to be an elongated chamber, empty except for a few small storm clouds floating about. Small lightning bolts flashed in brilliant cascades, arcing between the walls, ceiling, storm clouds, and floor. A soft clap of thunder followed each bolt, producing a constant (and somewhat unsettling) rumbling. Between the flashes, Daring spied an open doorway in the opposite wall.

"I’m actually beginning to agree with you, Shifty; the Eternity might be down here, after all. Only something that valuable would need this kind of protection," she said as she stepped towards the lightning-illuminated room. When she didn’t hear a reply, Daring looked back over her shoulder, only to find the red pegasus staring straight forward with his mouth open. "What is it now?" Daring asked, annoyed.

"Y-y-you want us to go through that?!" stammered Shifty.

"Well, yeah!" replied Daring, as though the answer was obvious, "I mean, I thought you were studying archaeology. What did you expect? Sitting in a lab, doing research? Just do everything I do and you'll be fine."

"But we really should be getting back to camp! We can come back in the morning," Shifty said, trying to hold his voice steady.

"Look," Daring said flatly, "it doesn’t matter what time it is — this thing is in our way and we'll have to cross it. Since we're here now, let's just get it over with. Besides, we’ll have plenty of time after we find the Eternity."

Shifty composed himself and nodded for Daring to go ahead. She took a few steps forward, looking up and down the room. Despite her bravado when chiding her companion, Daring was also a little nervous. She was still pretty new at navigating these ancient security systems; sure, she'd been through dangers before, but she never encountered one quite like this. However, if she knew her stuff (and she was pretty certain she did), they usually had some sort of trick that allowed safe passage. After all, what if one of the builders or Keepers needed to get through in a hurry? I just have to find out what it is.

As she examined the walls and floating clouds, she noticed subtle, but definite bright spots that faced each other. Frequently, a bolt of lightning would arc from one bright spot to another. After watching them for a few minutes, she noticed something interesting: lightning seemed to only travel between particular pairs of these spots. Hmm. I wonder if… Daring thought as she reached into her saddlebag and pulled out an apple with her teeth. She flicked her neck, throwing the apple across the room. It sailed about halfway before crossing a pair of bright spots. Sure enough, a bolt of lightning darted out and hit it, causing it to explode. Whoa, talk about a baked apple! She took a moment to chuckle at Shifty’s sudden flinch, and then went back to examining the room. She had seen what she needed to.

"The lightning follows pre-determined paths," Daring explained, "The apple wasn't struck until it crossed the path of a bolt. None of the bolts it passed by before went out of their way to strike it. We’ll just have to take this slowly."

With that, Daring took one last look at the area directly before her, but stepped forward and to her left. As she did so, a bolt struck at the exact spot she would have been had she stepped forward. Daring anticipated this; Shifty, however, had not: he yelped and jumped about a foot and remained hovering in the air.

"Jeez, Shifty!" Daring hissed, "Relax! You keep doing that and you won't make it outta here! Now follow me! And land. We need to walk across this room. Flying will probably make you a better target." As Daring looked up, it seemed that her guess was indeed correct: there were more flickers of lightning from above then there were closer to the floor. Makes sense, Daring reasoned. The cloud-floor alone was enough of a barrier to most unicorns and earth ponies, although she was certain that some traps they would probably encounter would be equally effective against all intruders.

Taking another quick look around, Daring stepped into the space directly in front of her. Shifty landed and, gulping, stepped into the space that Daring had just moved out of, causing the same bolt to strike to his right. He managed to avoid jumping that time, but still looked terrified. Daring chuckled again and moved forward. She wasn't mean-spirited, but, after everything Shifty put her through, she was going to enjoy this.

***

It had taken them a painstaking half-hour to make their way across the lightning room, and Daring had developed a headache from the flashing lightning and peals of thunder, but did her best to ignore it as she studied the dim hallway ahead. There was no source of light, other than the flickering illumination from the room behind them. She noticed that she was now in a narrow hallway, and while she could clearly see the opposite side, the darkness did much to hide any features. Daring once again pulled her flashlight out and started running the beam along the walls, floor, and ceiling. She observed slots running across the ceiling, and each one was aligned with a corresponding groove in the cloud-walls.

"Anything that could come out of those can't be good," the explorer said, pointing the slots out to Shifty. She returned the flashlight to her bag and said, "When I say 'go' run down the hall as fast as you can. Be prepared to duck and don't fly." Suddenly, an idea came to her, "Hey!" she said, excited, "Betcha I can beat ya to the other end!"

"What?!" replied Shifty, still nervous after the trek across previous room. "When did this become a ra-"

"GO!" shouted Daring. The yellow pegasus galloped down the hallway. With that, heavy slabs of cloud began to slowly drop out of the slots. Daring reached the end of the hall and turned to check on Shifty. He hadn't been very close behind her. Still, he managed to clear four of the slabs with room to spare, and had to duck under the fifth. It was close, but he was across.

As Shifty ran towards her, Daring began to say "You lo-." She cut herself short when Shifty suddenly ran right past her and into the next room. "Wait! Don't go-" she started before she was interrupted by a loud clap of thunder.

The booming caused Shifty to skid to a halt. Daring flew up to him with a look that just might have caused the red pony to bust into flames. "Are you trying to get us killed?!" she shouted, landing in front of Shifty. He could only stammer an apology. Daring sighed and examined their new location. It appeared that they were in an empty, unlit shaft. The walls stretched into the darkness above. Daring felt a few drops of rain fall from the unseen ceiling.

Daring was about to fly up the shaft when the rain suddenly intensified to a hurricane-like deluge. Lovely! There goes my field journal and stuff! She thought, grumpily looking at her soaked bags. She then noticed that, not only was the rain keeping her from seeing anything more than a few feet in front of her, it was slowly flooding the chamber. She looked back at the doorway they had entered through and found it shut.

"We have to go up!" she shouted above the rain, "C'mon!" She looked to make sure Shifty had heard her and took off. "Still don't know why I'm looking out for him…" she grumbled to herself.

Flying in heavy rain was difficult at best, but this torrential downpour was simply unnatural. After a tremendous amount of effort, Daring looked around and guessed that she had only gotten about thirty feet off the ground and she was beginning to tire quickly. Jeez! I’m a pretty good athlete, but this is making me look ridiculous. There has to be another way. She looked to the only wall she was close enough to see clearly and spotted a ledge about five feet above her. There!

With another burst of energy, the explorer managed to fly to the ledge and landed, panting from the effort. It wasn't long before Shifty joined her, although there really wasn't enough room for both of them on it. Daring stumbled back against the wall and noticed that it was soft. "Aha!" she cried, "Do what I do!" She pulled a piece of cloud from the wall, large enough to cover her and got under it.

The makeshift umbrella worked, making it possible for Daring to continue the journey upwards. She noticed that Shifty had indeed done the same and was following below her. Unfortunately, the umbrella was soaking up the rain and was growing heavier by the minute. Just as she thought she would run out of energy, she saw a silver glow through the rain at her level. She flew towards it and found that the light radiated from a shallow alcove that contained another doorway. She landed on the ledge and sat down, thanking the heavens that she was out of the rain. Shifty arrived a minute later, looking just as spent as Daring felt.

“Should. Have…Waited. For…Morning,” Shifty gasped between wheezes.

“Quiet. You,” panted the young adventurer, catching some rain in her hat, giving it a sniff, and then drinking it.

After taking a few minutes to catch her breath, Daring stood again. "Now, I'm going on ahead. You're going to wait here until I say you can come in. Got it?" Daring said to her colleague, allowing no room for argument. The red pony simply nodded, looking relieved that he had gained a few more minutes of rest. Daring went through the door and found herself in a small vestibule lit with a silver glow. She took a look around, but didn't see any windows or outside exits, and guessed that mirrors were used to direct sunlight (or, at this time, moonlight) down into the room. At the opposite end of the vestibule was a double door wide enough for four ponies to walk through side-by-side. Another lightning seal streaked across these doors in an intricate pattern, and, if its brightness was any indication, this one was much stronger than the one they encountered before. The only other features in the small chamber were two rows of pedestals, one along either of the side walls. Each row consisted of three stands and upon each of them sat a small urn made out of ice.

“All right, come in,” she shouted out the door. Shifty flapped in and landed limply next to her, gazing across the room.

“So, Ms. Do,” he said, somewhat cavalierly, as they exchanged glances, “You’re the expert here. What do we do?”

Daring shrugged, “Find the key, I guess.” She walked over to the right-side wall and began examining one of the urns. While she did so, she took a moment to consider the nature of the traps they had already gone through. The first one was a laborious maze of thunder and lightning; the second, a quick run through slabs that would have trapped them; and the third was a tiring ascent that practically forced them to take a breather. Aside from the first, none of them had been particularly deadly, and even the lightning chamber had a fairly easy tell. A flash of insight hit her: These traps weren’t meant to kill intruders. They were meant to slow them down, presumably so guards had time to arrive and apprehend the trespassers.

This meant that, whatever the key to the door was, it would probably take some time to enact. Daring groaned; the trip so far had already tried her patience and she was near her breaking point. The last thing she needed was to waste more time. On the other hoof, if the Eternity was in here, it would be more than worth the effort she was making now. Just have to keep at it, I guess. Now then: I didn’t have to be a total egghead to pass the previous traps; hopefully this should be simple as well.

A closer look revealed that the bottom of the ice-urn was colored a deep purple, the result of dye being mixed in the water before freezing. She carefully lifted the vase off its pedestal and, after giving it a close inspection (and admiring its craftsponiship), glanced at the top of the cloudy pedestal. Carved into the top was the word κυπαρισσί. ‘Dark green,’ Daring translated, but this is purple. She thought about it for a minute and went to the next pedestal along the wall. This one had a dark green bottom and the word on the pedestal read “blue.”

She looked across the room and saw Shifty examining the pedestals on that side. “Do your vases have colored bottoms?” she called, “And is there a word written into the pedestal?”

“Yes, to both,” the red pegasus replied, “this one has a green bottom and the word says ‘kuavo’ or something like that.”

“’Kyanó’,” Daring corrected, annoyed, “It means 'blue.'” Just what kind of archaeologist is he, anyway? He can’t even identify Ancient Pegasus?! She shook away the thought and continued, “This looks simple enough. Move the urns so that the color matches the word.” She quickly explained which color went with which word and then they moved the urns. Nothing happened.

“Well, that was rather anticlimactic,” Shifty said, mockingly. “Any more brilliant ideas?”

“Shut up!” Daring returned. “Ok,” she thought aloud, “we have purple, green, and blue on both sides of the room. There are two possible reasons for that: either each urn must be moved to its corresponding pedestal on the other side of the room, or each must be moved and placed at the same time. Since two of us were needed to open the last lightning seal, I think the second is more likely. Why don’t we try that? We could always try the first if it doesn’t work.”

Shifty grunted an agreement, and the two explorers returned the urns to their original positions. They then did as Daring suggested. The lightning seal dissipated. “Yes!” Daring cried, and galloped to the doors. She made another quick examination of the portal before pushing the doors open with a great shove, and looked inside.

The doors opened into a much larger chamber, which was also lit by reflected moonlight. Daring noted that the room was also warmer than any other place in Cloudyon she’d been to so far. A quick scan revealed this room to be nearly featureless, except for a large, raised block of cloud that stood in the center, surrounded by steps. At each corner of the block stood a cloud-sculpture of a pegasus, each one pouring liquid out of an amphora. Oh, Celestia! This must be it! she thought excitedly.

Despite her relative inexperience in the field, Daring had learned that simply rushing towards a mysterious artifact, no matter how legendary, valuable, or astonishing, was a good way to get hurt. She controlled herself and took a few steps to the side, allowing her to see past the block. She noted an open doorway standing in the opposite wall — good to know if one had to make a quick escape.

"I think I can safely say that we found something," Daring said, trying to keep herself calm. Slowly, she walked toward the block, but continued looking around the room, expecting a trap at any moment. Looking up, she thought she saw the clouds above the raised platform shimmer in an odd way. The effect was very subtle; she realized that she would have missed it if she didn’t look carefully. It didn't look like any trap she had ever encountered or read about, and her instincts were telling her it was okay, so she turned her attention back towards the room's only feature.

She reached the bottom step and, after cautiously placing a hoof upon it, started climbing. When she reached the top, she let out a gasp. A great bowl-shaped depression, large and deep enough to fit at least two entire ponies sank into the center of the platform. Forgetting her previous carefulness, Daring quickly ran to the edge and looked into it. The empty pool was unlike anything she had ever seen before! It appeared to be made out of ice, but was colored a deep turquoise. Etchings spiraled across its otherwise smooth walls and floor. Huh, that's unusual. Pegasi usually didn't carve designs that intricate into their creations — that was more of a unicorn thing. Trying to further process that thought was proving fruitless, though, and Daring found her attention returning to a singular thought: The Cloud-Held Eternity is real, and I found it!

Comments

[Tutis75]

The story takes on the most important staple of all Daring Do stories... traps!! Credit to you for having clever and inventive ones, and extra points for making them effective against flying creatures. Daring has her work cut out for her. And any genre savvy reader knows that if Daring found the treasure by chapter three, there must be trouble on the horizon. The big question is, can Daring escape it?

As a side-note, its interesting how you make the relationship between the two characters. At first it seemed that Shifty was the better archeologist, but now Daring is proving to have more experience. It'll be worth seeing how this plays out. Good work so far, keep it up!

[Silver Cloud Drifter]

This story is incredible! It puts my stories to such a shame, I'm a little embarrassed. I've got a long way to go before I reach your level. Maybe it's just that we have different writing styles. Ah well. Keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to more!

[Silver Cloud Drifter]

I just realized. Is the Cloud Held-Eternity based off of the fountain of youth?

[Trivial]

319468
Yep. You can take a guess as to what happens next. If you don't mind spoilers, go to http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/JustForFun/DaringDo to find the material that this story is based on.

[Silver Cloud Drifter]

319823
Wow! Seems like a really interesting series! Why, I'd try to write these books myself, but it looks you've already got it covered. I wouldn't want to be in competition with you. Plus, you do a way better job with Daring Do than my stories.

[Trivial]

321344
Now you're being too kind.
When I have the time (which is sadly lacking right now), I'm going to see what you have written. Thanks!

[Silver Cloud Drifter]

Hey Trivial! Remember me, the akward teenage author who probably misspelled akward. You probably don't.
Anyway! I've started a group called Rookies on the Rise, and you my friend are being invited to join, as you have passed my definition of a "rookie."
Although I feel like I'm insulting you considering you're definitely not new to writing stories. I made this group in an effort to gather new authors on fimfiction to gather and post their stories, hopefully gaining the attention of other new authors. I hope you consider joining, as I feel you'd make a great addition.
Dayum, I sound like I'm recruiting sports players...
So, please consider joining! Welp, until next time!

[Trivial]

343372
Don't worry. I remember you. Thanks! I appreciate you thinking of me when starting your group!
I joined and added my story. This is my first fan-fiction and, indeed, my first fiction ever. I not new to writing, but the only things I've written before this were term papers, library catalogs, and City municipal documents. Thanks again!!!

[liosthewolf]

im digging the traps in this chapter