There are a lot of relics, artifacts, and other ancient items of power strewn throughout the world. I should know; I've found safe homes for a lot of them, and even destroyed a few. A good rule of hoof is that the older it is, the more powerful it is. Not because it's old, but because it's survived that long, either because of its own toughness or the defenses its creators put around it.
The Weapon of the Ancients predates written language. Ahuizotl wants it for himself. I can't let that happen.
(Fourth place entry in the April 2015 Writeoff Competition. Prompt: Great Expectations.)
Chapters (1)
You magnificent troll.
I gave this my highest score during writeoff. Great job!
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Nope. It's an artifically created hill. No metaphor intended.
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Thank you.
I actually would have paid good money to see that.
Great stuff by the way.
haha that was great.
unexpected but at the same time so obvious if you really think about it
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mariowiki.com/images/3/3e/Brawl_Rocketbarrel_Boost.jpg
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To be fair. That is made out of oak, and it's powered by mashed-up bananas.
But close enough.
Here.....
gold.images3.org/images/gallery/uploads_big/gold/gold-coins-201.jpg
I dunno, a long string of betrayals ending in poisoning seems a little excessive for a weapon that you could literally make another of with less than five minutes' effort. Let alone "sealing". So the twist fell a little flat for me, even having guessed the artifact would be either a fourth-wall-breaking or a dud. Now, if it had been a POINTY stick...
Twist aside, the adventure stuff was well written and enjoyable.
Goddamn monkeys!
5921695 Then a monkey invents FIRE and BURNS the previous ultimate weapon!!
Monkey: I HAVE DA POWAAAAAAH!!!
Imagine how freaked out the monkeys would be when one of them cracked off a sharp piece of flint.
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Like most myths, that one sacrificed historical accuracy for a more compelling narrative. Whatever the full truth of the matter was, it was lost somewhere around the fifth layer of traps and barricades.
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At least they aren't in a high school.
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As Suntzucius said, an arms race of a thousand miles begins with but a single step.
5922029 High school?
For some reason I kept thinking of Donkey Kong
Some nice world building in this and the resolution was amusing.
5922029 That;'s why I used a rocket-powered car!
*Alondro invets wormhole weapons and destroys the universe* ME SHOULD NOT HAZ PLAYED GOD!!!
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And here I was thinking that this was going to fall along the lines of Larry Niven's "The Soft Weapon." I guess there are ancient civilizations, and then there are ancient civilizations.
A pony named Bromeliad in a story about ancient, magical artifacts... you wouldn't happen to be a David Eddings fan, would you?
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For good reason. The Donkey Kong crate-and-barrel aesthetic was a major inspiration for monkey technomancy.
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Nope, no Tnuctipun here. This is an idea that's been bouncing around my head since before pony. The Weapon of the Ancients, some mystical artifact of destruction from a forgotten era, is a fairly common trope. I wanted to turn that on its head and have the Weapon be something that ancients would hold in awe, but that modern civilization had long outclassed.
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Well, I am a Terry Pratchett fan, but honestly, I just think bromeliads are cool. Plus, it seemed like a perfect name for an earth pony in horse-pun South America.
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Poor Terry Pratchett, God rest him.
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I am also a Terry Pratchett fan.
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Ironically the Bromeliad trilogy is one of the few works by Terry Pratchett that I haven't read, though I think it was published under a different name where I live.
Lovely to see polished versions of all the Writeoff stories getting published. Congratulations on the fourth place!
This reminds me of The Salvation War. Didn't read it, just the TV Tropes page, but I remember it being said that demons were so feared because they could heal faster than bronze swords could cut them and they felt no pain. Neither of those traits is useful when the enemy has rocket launchers. Loved the monkey technology.
This is amazing :D Really scratched an adventurous itch. Have a fave.
I saw that twist coming. And it was great.
I was kinda hoping it would turn out the "monkeys" who built it were humans and it was a cd player instead now.
Love the new ending!
Very funny and kind of deep, if you think about it. Thumbs up.
I think you mean "an inconspicuous"
do with them
weren't suitable
This was worse
Much improved from a very nice story to begin with. Kudos!
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Similar lines, though no one's invading Tartarus. (Though next time Tirek comes back, he may be in for quite a surprise. There's an idea...)
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Just because there are great expectations doesn't mean they're going to be fulfilled.
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Of course not. Humans are apes, not monkeys.
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TV Tropes was right; everything really is better with monkeys.
Yeah, now there actually is one!
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All fixed. Thanks.
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Thanks!
This is one of those stories where the use of first person really hurts it. The opening bits have too much description and Daring Do's voice sounds kind of bored the whole time. There are some clever phrases here and there (the "intoner" line gave me a laugh), but it feels like the story is being rushed out. I guess this might be intentional, since Daring Do is pretty jaded, but it sucks all the life out of the story. This is especially evident during the action sequences; they feel clinical and dull.
Towards the end of the story, the descriptions also give way to a lot of dialogue. I guess Ahuizotl would be the type to explain his plan and all that, but the dialogue between him and Daring feels really expository for no good reason. There are other expository bits that feel out of place (particularly when Daring is describing magic), but at least those have the justification of being in narration.
The description is what drew me to the story, but the actual story lacks the snappy wit and mysterious air of adventure that the description has. It feels like a third person story that has been cramped into a first person mold.
Also, the deluge of puns at the beginning of the story clashes with the mood later. Possible bias on my part, but having so many punny names so close together makes them grating instead of amusing.
The end was okay. I was expecting some twist because of the contest entry part, and the story delivered well enough.
TL;DR: decent plot and some okay (if heavy-handed) worldbuilding, but dull narration and a bored narrator made the story feel a bit lifeless. 5/10 -- I finished it (more than I can say for a lot of fics), but I wouldn't recommend it to others.
Loved the fic. The noir-ish narration was what sold it for me, with just the right amount of silliness mixed in. The bit about the "intoner" cracked me up. Ending was appropriate and tied things together nicely. Great stuff!
When you mentioned that the "super weapon" was created by capuchins, I immediately thought of 2001:
I am glad to see I was not far off
This does raise an interesting question though: Why are "they" still guarding and maintaining the temple complex when there are things like the Talon and the Horn at large?
I much enjoyed the name you gave the mountain
Normally it would have gone right over my head, but something else I read recently (not pony) clued me in. Nice choice! This was a great fic.
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On its own, the Horn of Hunger has about as much magical suction as a pony inhaling through a drinking straw, and thus was not carefully warded. The Talon of Triumph was better guarded, but not well enough. And it's become tradition to add another layer to the defenses around the Weapon of the Ancients every generation or so, and who's going to stop following a tradition just because no one remembers how it started?
Heh! Nice misdirection. Made me think the "moneys" were humans (less advanced as they'd once been à la "fallen civilization") , and the "most ancient weapon" was actually some sci-fi ultra-overkill thingy. Nope! Just
Chuck Testamonkeys and a stick.5932068 I would've figured the protective spells might've been to preserve it or something, like an important museum item. One of the monkeys said that Ahuitzotl was just chasing after a "fairytale", after all.
Although... It makes me wonder, how did they already have the ability to build a place to seal it if they only just had discovered tool-use? I'm guessing any magical sealing-spells came later.
Loved the story, but was expecting at least a pointy stick
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I suppose the first sealing was a pile of rocks put on it, add one tech level and you build a chamber for the thing that, according to the skulls and paintings should clearly not be touched. Another few generations pass, the evil weapon is there and looking at it will make your fur fall out(according to granny scratch_the_bark) so maybe, to avoid that those jerks from the other tribe to get it, we should add a few of those marvelous technological miracles, the pointy rocks that fall down. Fast forward a few centuries to king Throw-the-parrot the protector, who sees as his holy mission to guard the murderous weapon and builds a labyrinth, and you can see how a few hundred generations down the line you have a mountain full of traps.
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I'm quite amused at how many people were expecting humans, especially after I showcased actual monkey magic with the prop plane. 5938354 has the rough progression of events that led to Mount Peligroso, and an excellent sense of monkey names.
Lovely. The foreshadowing was all there, there was a touch of cute worldbuilding (tapirs d'awwww), and it addresses one of my major gripes with just about any story about Ultra Godweapons From Beyond The Dawna Time. I award it six bananas and the cup of a carpenter.
This was very well written!
You really know how to stick to her character. You should probably make a whole Daring Do series!
The REAL ultimate weapon is still there.
Through liberal abuse of fate-magic, the symbology of the wooden club was tied into the existence of the Weapon, and the Weapon's thread of fate was tied into the wooden club.
With the seals being helpfully annihilated by Ahuizotl's incursion, the removal of the wooden club has instigated a natural timer on the lifespan of the Weapon before it literally fades out of the narrative reality of Equestria's Tapestry of Fate, and is dispersed by the elements into it's constituent materials.
I reviewed this story!
My review can be found here.
Little did they know that The Stick was the last remaining branch of Laurelin, with which one could forge connections between Equestria and Eternity. For from a single seed of the great Laurelin, the Tree of Harmony was born, it's Elements of Harmony the only weapon capable of countering The Stick.
I was expecting a double-twist, and started guessing.
Magnificent as always n_n The monkeys were especially hilarious.
It's a good story, but I do have to wonder how that stick was still the most dangerous weapon even when they had already invented lethal poison, (arguably) preservation spells and whatever technology necessary to construct the first layer of that mountain.
I don’t know why this line made me laugh so much, but it did.
It’s not often Daring Do’s line of work that an ancient threat that’s supposed to be contained is treated like it’s meant to be contained.
Lucky for her, Funky Kong was too cool to be offended by this remark.
The true magic of pegasi is “whatever the plot needs it to do.”
...Huh. This would be the first story I’ve read where a lack of adherence to genre conventions actually saved Daring Do.
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Really, Daring should be glad that the monkeys weren't armed. One spurt of a coconut gun and they would've just had to throw her unconscious body overboard.
No, that's earth ponies.
The lightning was merely the medium for the Horn of Hunger's own consumptive magic. Imagine a very literal form of Orim's Thunder.
Holy crap, that was amazing. Good job, man, I applaud you...
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Once a legend gets going people dont really forget it even when it stops being true
The belief that the weapon was unbeatable meant noone tried and instead focused on poison or a knife in the back of the sleeping owner
And then, Alondro finds an even MORE deadly ancient weapon: a board with a nail!
Several tentacled aliens are driven from Earth as he wields it in battle!
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The ancient aliens hypothesis is true in Equestria. But then the monkeys drove them off the planet!