Appledashery

by Just Essay

Well... Buck...

“What are you waiting for?!” Romulus snarled.

“Explosive ordinance won't prime itself, y'know!” one of Don Canter's thugs grumbled from where he knelt before the stack of dynamite. “You wanna blow a path to those mares or bury them?!”

“Both!” Romulus exclaimed, waving a dagger. “Anything to get them to croak up the whereabouts of the shard!”

“And what if they've got nothing to tell us?!”

“They will,” Romulus snarled. “Even if I gotta carve it out of their stupid horse brains. Now hurry up!”

“Just gotta set the charge!” One stallion attached a metal wire to the dynamite and unrolled it back up the cave to where a triggering mechanism was being erected. “We'll be lucky if this doesn't crush us too!”

“Let me be the judge of what's lucky or unlucky,” Romulus said, sneering under his beak as he stared at the imposing wall of collapsed rocks.

---

“Okay, careful!” Rainbow insisted, waving her forelimbs. “One pony at a time!”

“The oxidation of this metal is quite extreme,” Maud said as she trotted down onto the teetering platform beside her sister. “I do not think it will be able to carry us back up.”

“Let's worry about 'getting away from the blast radius' part right now!” Rainbow sputtered. “Trixie?! Get a move on!”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie d-does not think th-that this elevator is very stable!”

“Well...” Daring floated by. “There's one quick way to find out!” She spun and bucked Trixie in the rear. WHAP!

“Aaaaaie!” Trixie plunged forward, landing chest-first against Pinkie Pie. “Ooof!”

“Hiya, Trixie!” Pinkie grinned from beneath her. “Has anypony ever told you that your mane smells like toothpaste?!”

“Grrrrr!” Trixie shoved herself off of Pinkie and clung to her cloak while frowning up the shaft. “Nopony... and I means nopony kicks the Great and Powerful Trixie's flank!”

“A little late on the draw there, cupcake.”

“I mean it! Trixie will sue!”

“Go on ahead!” Daring grinned. “Considering the bits that this latest book will rake in, I'll settle in an instant!”

“Do you really have a soul somewhere inside all of that mess you call a body?” Rainbow squinted. “Or would somepony have to scrape it out with a teaspoon?”

“Watch it, speedy.” Daring pointed with a wink. “You're second billing... for now.”

“Look, we haven't much time and—”

“Then start looking for a lever, genius!”

“Uhhhh...”

“Over there?” Daring droned, pointing at the edge of the shaft. “In the lever space?”

“Whoah! I totally missed it!”

“Don't worry.” Daring shrugged. “It comes with doing dungeons in my sleep.”

“That explains why your growth's so stunted.”

“You're one to talk, pint-size.”

“Seriously? Even you?”

“PULL THE LEVER ALREADY!” Trixie shrieked.

“Right!” Rainbow zipped over and clasped the rusted stick with her hoof. “Brace yourselves—!”

---

“Okay, brace yourselves!” Several henchstallions galloped behind a pile of rocks while one thug gripped the trigger to the dynamite. “This is going to be loud!”

“Just do it!” Romulus said, clinging to the floor with razor-sharp talons. “If they get away, I promise, you're done for!”

The thug sighed. “To think I gave up hoofball coaching for this.” He shoved the trigger.

Schlunk!

---

Rainbow gripped the lever. “And a one... and a two... and a—”

KABOOOOOM!

“Gaaaaaah!” Rainbow fell under the cascade of flaming stone debris.

“Whoah-ho-ho-ho!” Daring Do dove and rolled about to dodge the shrapnel from the blast. “Michael Buck, eat your heart out!”

A loud groaning sound echoed across the chamber.

“Uhhhhhhm...” Maud slurred, clinging to Pinkie Pie.

“Trixie doesn't like the sound of that—”

SNAP! The cable holding the lift broke down the center. With a thunderous roar, the platform with the three ponies plunged into the dark shaft at an alarming rate, followed by the chunks of rocky debris still toppling from the explosion.

Rainbow wheezed, opened her eyes, and gasped down the tunnel. “Pinkie!”

“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...” and the three ponies disappeared from sight.

Comments

[Tchernobog]

I'll settle in an instance

Instant!

I wonder who is smaller... Dash or Daring?

[RoboRed]

“Don't worry.” Daring shrugged. “It comes with doing dungeons in my sleep.”

“That explains why your growth's so stunted.”

“You're one to talk, pint-size.”

“Seriously? Even you?”

Lol, and ouch.

[unknownbore]

5137696 Yes.

[Leftover of Saikano]

I wonder if we'll some Minecart Maudness while we are in the mine.

[Scohinyha Sanka]

5137696 That depends. Do you mean body size.. or ego?

[Tchernobog]

5138909 Daring clearly has the bigger ego here.

[TwilightUCrazy]

Seriously, I think Daring just might have a death-wish -- be it to her own adventures or to her continually poking the rainbow-colored dragon.

[kihutaja]

With the arc title being "We Dug Too Deep and Wheels Were Waiting", I'm expecting them to run into something like the Austraeoh machine world. We'll see.

[BabySkittleMonster]

5138610
... I can' tell if that pun was amazingly brilliant or plain terrible. Either way it made me laugh.

[Scohinyha Sanka]

5138915 I agree 100%

[Leftover of Saikano]

5139432 I like to think it's the first, but the joke is becoming old, as I have thrown similar puns about Maud in the most recent chapters, and only the first (something about the Montains of Maudness) got some thumbs up.

[silverspawn]

the group dynamic here is pretty great. the dialogue is really the best thing about this arc.

[Skunkiss]

“I mean it! Trixie will sue!”

God, this is just too cute

[Future Regret]

5137696
A few chapters ago it said Daring was an inch taller.

[Sileadh]

5938486 Nope, that was Maud she compared herself against.

[DeathFox4]

That's it. I'm getting sleep. Jeez. Day 3 and still 300+ chapters to go...

calm down dude.
Great story though!

[Tim the Planes-pony]

Halfway through what Essay has posted.