Chapter 6: "Friends In Cold Places."
The icy winds of the north Atlantic, whipped Daring's face as she and her team trekked through the snow covered tundras of Iceland's northern borders. She paused to re-read the passage from her father's journal.
"Going back to the states soon. Quill, says he's staying here to do research on Plato. His camp's to the north, near the mountains. Just past Grim Shallow. Don't know how he can stand the cold of this place, but, that's Quill for ya. He's always been a little out there."
Daring Do, Herpy, Professor Atlas and Swift Wing had landed on the coast of Iceland about three hours ago. The trip was long, but Daring kept herself busy reading her father's journal. It seemed Atlantis had only been his first stop in his quest to find "The discovery that would put the Do name, back in the history books."
He had been traveling all over the world, meeting and befriending ponies, griffins, and other adventurers, searching for what he described as the Ultimate Treasure.
Daring had been rather surprised at this. "Wait. Atlantis isn't an Ultimate treasure!? What could possibly be bigger than Atlantis?" She wondered.
She was more than a little eager to find out.
Another hour had gone by, and according to the journal, they were close to Dr. Quill-Pen's campsite. Daring knew if he was still in Iceland, looking for Plato's Lost Dialogue, then that's where he would be.
Swift Wing called out over the howling wind that stirred the snow around them. "Are we there yet?"
"Almost. It should be just over this ridge."
"Well, lets hurry then. I feel like I'm about to freeze to death out here!"
Professor Atlas spoke up. "Well, I doubt that. It's actually very warm in Iceland, this time of year."
"This is warm!?"
Atlas chuckled. "Well, its warm near the coastline. Its always much colder in northern parts of Iceland."
"So why are we all the way out here?" Swift replied, annoyed and shivering.
Daring looked back and gave weak smile. "Dr. Quill-Pen was dad's guy he had looking for Plato's Lost Dialogue. He set up camp to the north, near the mountains."
"Why? Why not set up camp near the coastline?"
Daring thought for a moment. The wind howled loudly around them.
"Maybe he was hiding."
Herpy spoke up. "Hiding? From what?"
Daring glanced back at him. "I don't think it was a what he was hiding from."
They came around the corner to a small clearing, where a campsite was indeed set up. But it looked completely abandoned.
"Uh...Is this it?" Swift Wing asked, eyeing a bundle of wood that was probably once used as a campfire.
Professor Atlas looked at a worn looking tent, that was pitched lopsided. "It doesn't look like any pony's been here for months." She said observantly.
Daring wasn't giving up yet. He had to be here! Maybe this was his old campsite, and he had moved farther up north.
'This has to be it!" She said determined. "Look around, maybe's he out getting wood."
Atlas put her hoof on Daring's shoulder. "Daring. Look around. It's obvious no one has been here in months. Dr Quill-Pen must've left years ago."
Daring looked over at the tent. "But why would this tent still be here?" She wondered aloud.
Herpy, who had never walked this far in his life, and was shivering from the bitter cold, sat down next to a large snow mound to rest.
He wasn't expecting this snow mound, to then say hello to him.
"Hello, there!"
If Daring and Swift Wing hadn't grabbed him by his tail, they were sure Herpy would've literally flown up the nearest tree.
They watched as the snow mound rose up to reveal an ice covered blue parka, and the blue earth pony in ski googles who wore said parka.
Icicles fell from his white beard as he spoke.
"Sorry to scare ya! Must've fallen asleep outside again. I do that sometimes, when I'm stargazing." The pony said with a jaunty accent, Daring placed as being Scottish.
As Herpy clung to Swift Wing, scared out of his wits, Daring approached the earth pony and smiled. "Dr. Quill-Pen, I presume?"
The earth pony nodded. "That's me! Now, what brings you and your group out this far north?" He asked with a smile.
Daring glanced back at her friends before turning back to Dr.Quill-Pen. "Were looking for Atlantis."
"Care to help us out?"
Dr. Quill-Pen's Campsite (Northern Iceland)
Everyone took turns warming up by the fire that Quill had made, and helping themselves to the hot cocoa he'd whipped up, while he and Daring talked at length about all manner of things.
"If I hadn't seen it, I never would've believed it! You are Daren's little filly! " Quill exclaimed excitedly, upon seeing Daring's cutie mark.
Daring blushed as she chuckled to herself. "Heh, not so little anymore, really."
Quill sipped his cocoa. "I'll say! Why, in those photos, you were just the littlest foal! Now look at ya!"
"Photos?"
"Oh, of course! Daren kept pictures of you, your sister, your mum. Not a day went by, when he didn't look at em."
Daring smiled."Really?"
"Yes ma'am. He would look at those pictures for hours, almost. Always talked about how proud he was of ya. How you'd grow up to do great things. Me and Atlas, we would listen for hours how he talked about ya and your sister. How you were his whole world."
Daring felt tears well up in her eyes. She quickly brushed them away as she asked. "How long did you know my father, Mr. Quill-Pen?"
Quill laughed. "Oh, please Daring. There's no need for formality with me! Call me Quill! That's the name I've always gone by!" He exclaimed cheerfully.
Daring chuckled. "Heh, sorry. How long did you know my father, Quill?" She asked.
Quill sat up, brushing snow of the hood of his ice covered parka. "Me and Daren? We go back to foalhood. Known him since I was only a knee tall!"
Daring sat up as she listened to Quill's story.
"When we were young, all we wanted to do was go adventuring. To see the world, like your granddad."
"Granddad?"
"That's right! The great Danger Do, the pony that put the Do name on the map! He was world famous, he was. Saw all kinds of things, brought back a new treasure every day!"
Quill gazed into the fire, lost in his memories.
"He was your dad's hero, and mine. We wanted to be just like him!"
Daring was immersed in Quill's story. She felt like a little filly again, listening to an uncle recall stories from his youth.
"What happened to him?" She asked.
Quill looked uncomfortable, suddenly. "No idea. One day, he just...didn't come back. His name faded from memory, and eventually the Do name was forgotten."
Quill looked solemn for a moment. But then he smiled.
"Then your dad took up the reins, and brought the Do name back! He was in papers every day! Me and him worked on, maybe a hundred expeditions together! He was a big, famous treasure hunter and I hung back in did the research for everything. I preferred books over the fame anyway."
He took another sip of cocoa.
Daring could help but compare her father and Quill's relationship to the one she and Herpy shared. She smiled as she imagined Herpy in a snow parka retelling stories of Daring and her adventures to other ponies.
Daring glanced over to the professor, who was happily sipping cocoa by the fire.
"What about Professor Atlas?" She asked.
"Hm?"
"How long have you known her?"
Quill looked over at Atlas and smiled. "Oh, your dad brought her on a ways back. Said she was an expert on Atlantis. And by Celestia, was she! We didn't talk much. She stuck to your dad like glue, pretty much the whole time. He was a hero to her."
He chuckled. "I don't blame her."
Daring smiled at the thought of the professor, her dad and Quill working together to find Atlantis.
But then her smile faded as she asked. "Quill?"
"Hmm?"
"....Do you know what happened to my father? Where he is now?"
Quill was silent for a moment. He seemed uneasy to answer.
Finally he answered. "Sorry, sweetie. I ain't seen mane nor tail of him, since he left this campsite years ago."
"Do you know why he left?"
"Couldn't say. Said something about it being important. That it was something he needed to do. After he left, Atlas followed suit. A week later I got news that he'd went missing."
Daring felt a tightness in her chest, as she lowered her head.
"Sorry, filly. I wish had good news for ya. Especially since ya came all the way out here!" Quill said sadly.
Then Daring remembered why, they'd come out there in the first place. "Quill!"
"Yes?"
"Plato's Dialogue! Did you ever find it?" She asked hopefully.
Quill looked taken back by Daring's sudden question. "Well, that's a question I'd thought I'd never get to answer."
"Well?" Daring asked eagerly.
Quill looked at Daring with a glint in his eye. "I think it's best if you see for yourself."
He stood up and motioned for Daring and her friends to follow. They looked confused, but did as they were asked.
They didn't have to go far, as only a few klicks from where they were, a huge cave appeared from the side of the mountain, through the snow.
Daring and her friends looked at it in awe, as Quill turned on a bright flashlight that was fastened to his googles and asked them to follow him inside.
Inside, the cave opened up into a vast tunnel system of other caves. Bats looked at them from the ceiling as they walked through to one of the tunnels, the light of Quill's flashlight being their only way of seeing in the darkness.
Quill spoke up, as Daring and her team followed him. "Found these caves, a couple months after Daren left. There the reason I never left. I think once you see em, you'll see why."
"Here we are!"
Daring heard herself and the others gasp, as they found themselves in a gigantic temple, with huge stone columns that reached the cave ceiling. A waterfall formed a river that circled the place, as they looked at the possible thousands of strange symbols and runes that covered every square inch of the cavern walls. In the center of the temple was a huge array of interlocking stone rings that appeared to have maze like structures built within each one. Daring trotted over to it and gazed down at it awestruck.
Every detail was so intricate and aligned with other parts, that it was impossible to make any sense of it. The mazes were built into one of each of the seventeen stone rings that encircled one another, forming a huge complex array or pattern.
She looked closer to see, several small statues that Daring was sure were not of ponies. In fact, she had no idea what they were statues of.
They were odd looking bipedal creatures with animal-like faces. Each statue appeared to be holding something, in what looked like claws.
"W-What is this?" She wondered aloud.
Quill trotted over to her and smiled broadly. "This, little filly,is Atlantis. An ancient model of it."
Daring and the whole group went speechless as they took in the magnitude of the moment.
Professor Atlas was the first to break the silence. "Y-you mean....
Daring looked back at her smiling even more broadly then Quill. "It's real professor. Atlantis is real!"
Quill looked at the professor warmly. "We're not crazy, Atlas! isn't that great?" He exclaimed proudly.
Tears welled up in the professor's eyes as she trotted over and stared down at the stone model.
"I-its....its, enormous!" She exclaimed.
She wasn't wrong. The stone model of Atlantis took up the whole middle of the temple. It was so large that all of Daring's friends and herself could encircle it, and they'd only cover about one corner of the thing.
They all stared in awe at it, as Quill chuckled.
"Yep, Heh. First time i found this thing, I stared at it for so long, I fell asleep in here!" he joked.
Then Daring had a thought. "Wait...why does it look like a maze? Isn't a city supposed to have buildings?"
Quill thought for a moment. "Well, according to some of these symbols here..." he gestured to the symbols that covered the walls.
"This is only the foundation of the place. They were planning on building a hundred of these, and stacking em on top of one another!" He explained.
"A hundred!?" Swift Wing exclaimed.
"There wouldn't be any room left in the ocean!" She added, staring at the sheer size of the model.
Quill laughed."But it'd make it a heck of a lot easier to find though, wouldn't it?" He joked.
He turned to Daring. "After I found this temple, i started studying these symbols."
He trotted over to a wall where the symbols were clearly lined in a manner of hieroglyphics. "And I came across one that said how this was the place, were Atlantis was being built!"
"What?!"
Swift Wing looked around. "Here? in this temple?" she asked, bewildered.
Quill smiled. "Nope, little filly. Iceland!"
"WHAT!?" They all exclaimed at once.
"They used all of Iceland, as one big super forge to construct parts of the city, then charted it off to build it somewhere else."
Professor Atlas was almost speechless. "They used Iceland itself, as one huge forge to construct parts of Atlantis?!"
"Ayep. I'd bet all of Iceland's got temples like this one hidden all over." Quill explained.
He pointed to another set of symbols. "Now these, talk about how they built these huge machines to do all the heavy lifting for em. Ain't no pictures, but according to these, they were gigantic! One could probably take up the whole coastline of Iceland!"
"Dear Celestia." Professor Atlas sat down and fanned herself, trying her best not to faint. This was all so much for her to take in at once.
Daring stood next to Quill. "Do any of them say where to find Atlantis? I mean if they were building it here, they had to have put the location of the city somewhere right?"
Quill shook his head. "If only it were that easy, filly. No, ma'am this place must've been abandoned long before they finished it. Probably moved their forge somewhere closer to the city, so they wouldn't have to hoof it so far."
"Been studying these symbols for years now. Ain't ever seen anything that said where they were dragging it all." he explained.
Daring looked crestfallen.
"But...
"But?
Quill chuckled. "I do know where Plato's dialogue is."
"You do!?" Daring asked excitedly.
"Where?!" She added, still just as eagerly. The others gathered around them to hear as well.
Quill smiled as he explained. "It ain't in Iceland, unfortunately."
"Turns out, I wasn't the only one looking for it. A professor at Baulkham University, had won the thing in an auction. When I got wind of it, I sent a letter to Daren on where it was. But he never got back to me."
"So when that failed, I sent another letter to the university claiming that it belonged to me. Didn't feel right lying, and all, but I'd wager using it to find the city of Atlantis was a heck of better use for it, then for some snooty professor to use it as a trophy or something."
"No offense." he added.
"None taken." Daring and Atlas both said at the same time.
Quill chuckled and continued. "So when the professor left the university for good, They kept his room locked up, with the dialogue still inside it!"
A realization hit Professor Atlas like lightning. "Wait! Baulkham University? T-Thats....that's my university! Your telling me, the key to finding Atlantis has been in my own school, this entire time!?" She exclaimed, her eyes wide.
Quill looked concerned. "Uh...apparently?"
This time, Professor Atlas did faint. Swift Wing caught her as she fell to the floor.
Quill looked down at her. "Was it something I said?"
Daring smiled and hugged the nutty old earth pony, who hugged her back.
"You've said exactly what we needed to hear! I can't thank you enough!" she said happily.
Quill chuckled. "Oh you know how you can thank me."
"How?"
He eyed Daring with a serious look on his face. "Find it, Daring."
"Find Atlantis. Prove to the whole world, that its not just some legend! That it's real. Show the world, what the Do name means!"
Daring looked at him warmly and nodded. "I will. Don't you worry about that."
She turned to her team, who were fanning the professor. "Well guys, looks like we got a new destination!"
Swift Wing sighed. "Great. Where to now?"
"Some place warmer."
"I'm in!"
As they loaded their stuff and the professor (who was still unconscious) into the plane, Daring turned to Quill, who had become like an uncle to her. "Are you sure you don't want to come back with us?" she asked.
Quill smiled and shook his head. "Nah, little filly. Not just yet, at least. Still so much I haven't studied here. I'll be heading back soon though, don't worry."
Daring hugged Quill one last time before she boarded the plane. Swift told everyone to hang on as she started the engines.
Then a thought hit her. She looked back over to him. "Quill?"
"Hmm?"
"Have you ever heard of some pony called, Moonbeam?" She asked.
Quill suddenly looked alarmed as his eyes went wide. "W-What? How do you know that name?"
"You...know her." Daring realized.
"Now listen Daring. Stay away from that one, you hear? That mare's bad news. The worst news actually."
Daring suddenly had a million questions. "Why? Who is she? What does she want?" She asked quickly.
Quill thought for a moment. "Lets just say, shes no friend of mine, yours or your father. She dabbles in things, no pony ever should."
"Like The Abyss."
Daring caught him say those whispered words to himself and froze. "What? Whats The Abyss?" She asked concerned.
Quill quickly put on a cheerful facade. "Oh, nothing! Just a legend is all!"
But Daring wasn't buying it. "But, you said that Moonbeam-
Daring didn't get to finish as the plane had taken off the ground, and headed for the skies.
She looked back to see Quill waving at them from the coastline.
She should've waved back. But her mind only held one thought: What was The Abyss? And why was Quill, so scared to even talk to her about it?"
Daring wondered this, the entire trip back to Equestria.