Gilda peered over the large and empty table. “So how does this darn map thing work anyway?” she asked. “What makes it turn on?”
“I’m not sure,” said Sunset. “Chrysalis’s instructions were rather unclear.”
“What were her instructions?”
Sunset held up a piece of paper. On it was written ‘I think it does stuff sometimes when something happens. Just wing it.’
“Of course,” said Gilda in a defeated tone. “Well, any luck with selling the castle?”
“Not yet,” said Sunset. “Castle selling is kind of a small market. You just have to stumble upon that one guy who wants it.”
Just then, the map suddenly appeared on the table… but disappeared a second later. “What happened?” asked Gilda.
“The things’s malfunctioning, I think,” said Sunset. She kicked it and it came back. “Ah, just like a projector.”
The two looked at the map, which had a talon and several buttons floating above an area. “Huh, they’re floating above Griffonstone,” said Sunset. “Great! I’ve always wanted to visit there!”
“What stopped you before?”
“It’s a costly trip,” said Sunset. “But now I can write it off as a business expense!”
“But your cutie mark isn’t on there,” said Gilda. “Can you write it off under those circumstances?”
“It’d be incredibly stupid if I couldn’t,” said Sunset.
A short time later…
“Turns out I can’t,” said Sunset, “which is incredibly stupid. Great. I guess it’s up to you and Suri, then. Bring me back some souvenirs.”
“Why would I even want to go?” asked Suri.
“I’m sure you can find some money-making exercise,” said Sunset.
“More importantly,” said Gilda, “while I wouldn’t mind visiting there, how am I getting in? Griffonstone is part of the Griffon country! And I got banished, remember?”
“Oh, pshaw!” said Suri. “Just wear a disguise.”
“Do you have any idea what the punishment for trying to sneak in with a disguise is?” asked Gilda. “They tie you up and make you listen to bad karaoke for a few days.”
There was an awkward pause. “Um, okay,” said Sunset. “Anyway–”
“You wouldn’t be so flippant if you ever heard bad griffon karaoke!” said Gilda.
“Fine, you two figure it out!” said Sunset before she walked out.
“Well,” said Suri, “we just have to get a disguise. Though good disguises cost a lot of money. Well, I’m sure we can find something that’s good for a reasonably low price.”
“I would like to reiterate, for the 100th time, that this is possibly the stupidest plan we have ever tried to do,” said Gilda.
“I think you’re underestimating the sheer stupidity of some of our previous plans,” said Suri. “Now come on. The border patrol is coming up soon.”
“Just remember, if this doesn’t work, you’ll buy me that new rocket launcher. And I got that contract notarized, too.”
“Just get the disguise on already,” said Suri. She put the disguise on Gilda, which was a paper bag over her head with eye holes cut into it. The two went up to the border patrol.
“Hello!” said Suri. “We are here to go into the Griffon country! I am Suri Polomare and this is my associate, Bagboy.”
“Sounds good,” said the griffon. “Go right ahead.”
Suri and Gilda walked past the border. After they got a while away, they stopped. “What just happened?” asked Gilda.
“I wonder that myself,” said Suri. “I heard the quality of the border patrols had really decayed, hence why the paper bag could work, but I was at least expecting to have to bust out that fake ID card we got for you. Well, don’t look a gift alligator in the mouth.”
“Whatever,” said Gilda. “It worked. Do you have that souvenir list that Sunset gave us? We might as well get on that now.”
“Because we’re so generous?” said a confused Suri.
“Because knowing our luck, in trying to buy these things, we’ll end up finding whatever it was we were supposed to find.”
And so they walked towards Griffonstone, and absolutely nothing interesting or controversial happened along the way. Eventually they reached an archway. There was an awkward pause.
“Huh,” said Gilda. “It feels weird to travel without Trixie for once. I was expecting her to announce ‘here we are in Griffonstone!’ at this point.”
“Well, let’s go!” said Suri. “Money is going to make itself, you know.”
The two walked through the archway and turned the corner to find a lot of dilapidated houses. “Wow, this place sure took a turn for the worse while I was gone,” said Gilda.
“That just means the prices will be cheaper, allowing for higher profits when they’re sold back home!” declared Suri.
“So, I suppose we should try to figure out what happened in the intervening years?” suggested Gilda. “Maybe we got sent here to try to do that?”
“Who cares?” asked Suri. “I’m just here to make some money.”
“Well, I guess as long as I’m here I might as well visit someone I know,” said Gilda. “Want to come along?
“Would this be likely to be a profitable visit?” asked Suri.
“Probably not,” said Gilda.
“Then I’m not interested,” said Suri.
“You know, there is more to life than money,” said Gilda.
“Well, duh,” said Suri. “There’s also fashion. Which can be used to make money. They go together like water and sugar!”
Gilda stared at Suri in a confused manner for a few seconds before deciding not to pursue the matter further. “Fine. We’ll go our separate ways and then meet up again later.”
And so the two went on their separate ways, planning to meet up again later.
“Let me see,” muttered Gilda to herself. “It’s been so long since I’ve been here. I hope I can still remember where Gilbert lived. Hopefully it won’t take too long.” She turned around and found herself face to face with Gilbert. “Oh. Well, that was easy.”
“Hello?” said Gilbert uncertainly. “Who are you?”
Gilda took off the bag before putting it back on again. “It’s me, Gilda.”
“Oh,” said Gilbert. “That would explain the disguise. What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story and you’ll feel dumber for having heard it,” said Gilda.
“No, really, I want to know.”
“After a big battle, this mystical tree left behind a map, but it got delivered to the wrong place, possibly due to dyslexia on the part of the tree, so it got moved to where we live. Then it said Suri and I should head to Griffonstone to accomplish something without actually specifying what it was. So we did, and that’s why we’re here.”
“That wasn’t really that long of a story,” said Gilbert. “Though I’ll admit, I do feel a little dumber for having heard it.”
Suri suddenly ran up. “Oh, Gilda, I forgot to… wait, who is this guy?”
“Oh, him?” said Gilda. “This is Gilbert. He’s a guy I knew when I used to live here. Speaking of which, whatever happened here anyway? This place wasn’t as run-down when I was here before.”
“The Idol of Boreas, that golden statue that King Grover found back in the day, went missing,” said Gilbert. “Then everything kind of fell apart.”
“This all happened because you guys lost a statue?” asked Gilda.
“Well,” said Gilbert, “shortly before losing the Idol, there was a massive stock market crash due to people buying only on margin, and the banks didn’t have enough money stored to cover all of the withdrawals that resulted and closed down. That could have also contributed.”
“Fine, whatever,” said Gilda. “Any suggestions on how to possibly get my banishment removed or reduced while I’m here?”
“Find the statue?” suggested Suri.
“Oh, sure, that’ll be easy!” said Gilda sarcastically. “It could be anywhere!”
“It supposedly fell into the Abyssal Abyss,” said Gilbert.
“Yeah, and I’m sure we could easily find it with the help of a redundant redundancy,” said Gilda.
“Wait, how would a redundancy help?” asked Suri.
“That was clearly a sarcastic remark on the name Abyssal Abyss,” said Gilda in an irritated tone.
“I think you need to improve your one-liners,” said Suri.
“What are you talking about?” said Gilda. “That was a great one-liner!”
“But it had no bearing on the context! It would have made more sense if you had said we could do it with a ropey rope or something like that.”
“Whatever!” said Gilda. “Let’s get back to the point. It’s been years. I assume that it would’ve been found by more qualified people if it could be found. Why the heck would I be any better at finding it?”
“Because you have something that none of them ever did!” declared Gilbert.
“What?” asked Gilda.
“I don’t have the faintest idea. It just seemed like an inspiring thing to say.”
Gilda sighed.
“Oh, wait, there is something,” said Gilbert. “You have the money to buy the stuff necessary to climb down there and the enthusiasm necessary to do so. No one else ever bothered because, you know, bad economy.”
“Enthusiasm?” asked Gilda. “What enthusiasm? I’m generally as apathetic as they come, unless it involves pranks or guns.”
“Well, I’m speaking relatively,” said Gilbert. “There’s a really high amount of apathy right now.”
With the timing that a comedy story requires, there happened to be another griffon somewhat nearby who tripped and fell, falling onto a sharp rock and resulting in an injury far more serious than one would expect in a comedy story. “Huh,” said the griffon as they looked at the large and bleeding laceration, “that seems bad. Well, whatever. Too lazy to get medical attention.”
“Uh, okay,” said Gilda. “Why do we have to get supplies anyway? Can’t we just fly down?”
“The winds are rather strong,” said Gilbert.
“All right!” said Suri. “Let’s do this! Let’s get that thing and help fix the country!”
“You seem awfully excited about this,” said Gilda. “How does it benefit you?”
“Easy!” said Suri. “The exchange rate is really bad right now, so I can get tons of Griffon money in exchange for Equestrian money. So if I do that, and then the economy improves, I can exchange the Griffon money for much more Equestrian money than I initially used and come out ahead with a big profit. So if we can get that idol and fix the economy, then I could double, triple, maybe even quadruple the money I used for that!”
“Well, it all assumes that we’d be able to find the stupid idol,” said Gilda.
“Why couldn’t we?” asked Suri. “The tree sent us here! Obviously the tree has been sending us to places where we can make a profit, much like how we came away richer from that whole business with Our Town.”
“You went to your town?” asked Gilbert. “Wouldn’t you normally be there?”
“No, we went to Our Town,” said Suri.
“But you just said that–”
“We went to a town that was named ‘Our Town,’” said Gilda.
“That seems like it would lead to a lot of misunderstandings,” said Gilbert.
“The point,” said Suri, “is that it wouldn’t have sent us here if we weren’t able to find the Idol and thus make money.”
“You sure it’s for money-making tips?” said Gilda.
“What else would it be?” asked Suri.
“Are we just going to stand around talking?” asked Gilbert.
“That is what we seem to have a strong tendency to do,” said Suri. “But sure. Let’s get that idol!” She paused. “Wait, should it be idol or Idol? Would it be correct to capitalize it when it’s not being followed by the ‘of Boreas’?”
“Who cares, unless we’re writing it down?” said Gilda.
“Fair point,” said Suri.
“I see what you mean about having a tendency to stand around talking,” said Gilbert.
One supply-purchasing trip later…
“Okay, so who ends up going down?” asked Suri. “I call not it!”
“That’s not how it works,” said Gilbert. “What we need to do is carefully examine what each of us–”
“Not it!” said Gilda.
“Looks like it’s you, Gilbert,” said Suri.
“Ugh,” said Gilbert, “why me?”
“Because I don’t have wings, so I’d be in more trouble if we didn’t make it,” said Suri. “Also, as an OC, you’re less important and more expendable.”
“OC?” asked Gilbert.
“Ordinary Citizen,” said Suri.
“What does that even mean, and what does it have to do with anything?”
“Do not question the acronyms!” snapped Suri.
“I’ll side with Suri on this one,” said Gilda.
“That’s only so you don’t have to go down there!” said Gilbert
“Possibly,” said Gilda.
“Ugh, fine,” said Gilbert. “I’ll give it a try. But you owe me!”
Gilbert tied one end of the rope to himself and the other to a rock. “Well, here goes nothing,” he said as he tried climbing down. However, the rope broke midway through the climb, causing him to fall down onto a ledge that conveniently happened to be there. “Uh, guys?” he called out. “Can one of you help me out?”
“Darn it,” said Suri, “I should’ve known that an Ordinary Citizen would be of little use. You need to be more special to pull this kind of thing off.”
“Then why did you say that being an OC would make him better suited for this?” asked Gilda.
“That is a very good question,” said Suri. There was a pause.
“Could I get an answer to my my very good question, then?” asked Gilda.
“I said it was a good question,” said Suri, “not that I had a good answer.”
“I could still use a little help here!” called out Gilbert.
“Fine!” said Gilda. “Suri, get me the backup rope and tie it to the rock. I’ll climb down this time.”
Suri got the backup rope and tied it to the rock. Gilda climbed down. She eventually reached the platform where Gilbert was. “You didn’t happen to find the idol while you were here, did you?” she asked.
“No, and–” started Gilbert before they were interrupted by Suri, tied to the other end of the rope, falling onto their platform.
“Why are you here?” asked Gilda.
“It was the craziest thing,” said Suri. “The rock turned out to be a troll that was supposed to be in some totally different world but got lost, and it decided to sing a song about how it was annoyed about the rope, so it tied it on me to see how much I’d like it, but then I got pulled in because of the weight.”
“What?!” exclaimed Gilda.
“At least I think that’s what it said,” said Suri. “That song was a bit hard to decipher at points. Wish I had a lyrics sheet.”
“Not that,” said Gilda. “What do you mean, pulled in because of the weight? Are you saying I’m overweight?”
“Well, you could maybe cut down on the sweets,” said Suri.
“Couldn’t we handle the current situation before you argue about Gilda’s weight?” asked Gilbert. “I’d like to find that idol.”
“Well, I guess that would make sense,” said Gilda. “I suggest we–”
Gilda was interrupted by the platform they were standing on suddenly collapsing, sending the three falling and screaming. Luckily, there was another platform on the way down, which Gilda managed to grab hold of. Gilbert grabbed the rope on the way down, leaving them in the awkward position of Gilda hanging onto the platform while being tied to Suri with the rope also held by Gilbert.
“Yeah,” said Suri, “it really does look like you could stand to lose some weight.”
“Is that really the thing you should be saying when in a life-threatening situation where the supposedly overweight being is the one keeping you alive?”
“If we all die, I wouldn’t get a chance to say it,” said Suri, “so I might as well take the chance now. Can you pull us all up now?”
“Fine,” said Gilda, “I’ll…” She trailed off as she noticed on another ledge there was an idol of some sort. “Hey, it’s the idol.” She reached to grab it, then stopped, frowned, and climbed onto the ledge before pulling Suri and Gilbert up.
“Wow!” said Suri. “You care about us so much you abandoned getting the idol to pull us up!”
“What are you talking about? I abandoned nothing,” said Gilda as she nonchalantly leaned over and grabbed the idol. “In fact, it would’ve been downright stupid to try to grab the idol while in that position. I might have knocked it over or something.”
“Oh,” said Suri. “Well, if it had been between us and the idol, which would you have picked?”
“At any rate,” said Gilda as she ignored Suri’s question, “we should probably be getting out of here. I guess I’ll just climb and pull us up.” She paused. “Hang on a minute. Gilbert, why didn’t you climb up when you originally fell?”
“I panicked?” said Gilbert.
“Makes perfect sense to me!” said Suri.
“Ugh, just hold onto that idol for me,” said Gilda.
One climb upwards later…
“Okay,” said Gilda, “I suggest we never do something like that again. But whatever, we have the idol. Let’s find the ruler, present it, and hopefully get my banishment rescinded. And also get us a bunch of money with that exchange ratio. Ready, Gilbert?”
“There is one problem with that,” said Gilbert.
“What?”
“Well, truth is, I was never Gilbert,” he said. He pulled off his skin, which turned out to be a suit, revealing a light gold pegasus mare with a mane that was basically a grayscale version of Rainbow Dash’s mane. “You thought you were working with a griffon named Gilbert. But it was I, Daring Do!”
“Why did you put stress such seemingly random sounds in your name?” wondered Suri.
“I thought Daring Do was a fictitious character,” said Gilda. “Did you pop up from one of those interactive books?”
“I think it’s more likely that she’s actually the alter-ego of the author, and that the books are actually autobiographical,” said Suri.
“Exactly!” said Daring Do.
“That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard,” said Gilda.
“I think you’re underestimating the stupidity of some of the things we’ve heard,” said Suri.
“Whatever,” said Gilda. “So where is Gilbert?”
“There never was a Gilbert!” declared Daring Do. “It was just me in disguise all along! I did it in order to get this idol!”
“But… but I knew Gilbert before the idol ever got lost,” said a confused Gilda.
“Yes, I played the long game there, didn’t I?” said Daring Do.
“Well what are you planning to do with the idol, then?”
“Put it in a museum, of course!” declared Daring Do. “As should be done with all artifacts!”
“But doesn’t it technically belong to the–”
“Museum!” snapped Daring Do. “See you!”
Suri and Gilda watched Daring Do fly off in a flash. “You’re not going to go after her?” asked Suri.
“Nah. Because I still have the real idol right here,” said Gilda as she pulled out an idol.
“Wait, why do you have a fake one?”
“It was a part of a prank,” said Gilda. “It’ll explode into a big bunch of glue soon enough. See?” She pulled out some glue. “I just used this… oh, wait. I used the wrong glue. This is that super-permanent glue that basically never comes off. Oh well. Guess now I don’t have to feel bad about that.”
“Okay, hang on a moment, I have some questions,” said Suri. “When did you even have a chance to make a fake idol?”
“Oh, I had heard what it supposedly looked liked, so I made one that looked similar. I figure she didn’t get a close enough look at the real one to tell the difference.”
“You made a fake idol before we went down there just so you could give it to who you thought was Gilbert as part of a prank in case we actually found the idol?” asked Suri.
“Much like Daring Do,” said Gilda with a grin, “I play the long game.”
“And where were you holding that idol and the glue?”
“In my inventory,” said Gilda. “It’s the best place to hold things.”
Suri stared blankly at Gilda.
“Come on!” said Gilda. “Let’s find the king already.”
One trip to the griffon king later…
“Hooray!” said the unnamed griffon king to Suri and a Gilda wearing the bag on her head again. “We have the Idol of Boreas back! Thank you, Suri and Bagboy.”
“Indeed,” said Suri, “those are absolutely our names.”
“With this,” continued the still-unnamed griffon king, “we will surely be able to recover our former glory. I feel in such a good mood I’m going to rescind all banishments! Which is especially easy as if I remember correctly, there was only one banished griffon to begin with.”
“So how is the idol going to suddenly revitalize the economy anyway?” asked Gilda.
“Oh, that’s an easy one!” said the king. He walked onto a balcony that happened to be there. “Hey, everyone! We got the idol back!”
“Hooray!” declared all of the griffons, who promptly ceased their apathetic ways. One hour later, unemployment was at a record low, stocks were at record highs, and life expectancy had increased by 10%.
“If all it took to revitalize things was showing them the idol,” said Suri, “why didn’t you just make a fake one?”
“Golly!” said the griffon king. “I didn’t think of that.”
After some money exchanging and a return home…
“Yet another profitable enterprise!” declared Suri. “I love this Tree of Whatever and its tips!”
“It’s so wonderful it didn’t even let me come along to make that money,” muttered Sunset.
“I didn’t get sent either, and you didn’t hear me complaining,” said Trixie.
“Maybe that’s because you were away promoting Mare Do Well until just now!” said Sunset.
“The point stands,” said Trixie.
“Whatever,” said Sunset. “So, Gilda, are you planning to move back to Griffonstone now that you got un-banished?”
“Well, I was thinking about it,” said Gilda, “until I learned about how unreasonable their gun control laws are.”
“What, do they require background checks or something?”
“Oh, I’d be fine with that if that were all,” said Gilda. “But seriously, they don’t even let you carry loaded rocket launchers in public. Who does that? Certainly no country I have any interest in living in.”
“Um… okay,” said Sunset.
“Oh no!” said Trixie. “I just realized something!”
“What?” asked Sunset.
“Remember back when Gilda got rid of the ursa major with the rocket launcher?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Gilda. “Good times.”
“I just realized, back then I should have made a joke about the right to bear arms!” said Trixie. “Argh! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
“Well,” said Daring Do to herself, “this has been a bad day. The idol turned out to be fake, the glue got on my wings and they’re stuck to me so I can’t fly, I’ve gotten a bit injured from the fall, I’m lost in the jungle, and worst of all, I’m talking out loud to myself for some reason. But as long as some super powerful villain doesn’t show up, I should be fine!”
Just then, she ran into a group of ponies wearing stereotypical jungle tribe outfits and paint. “Um, hi,” she said. “I’m kind of lost, any chance I could get help?”
“Wait a minute,” said one of the ponies, “aren’t you A.K. Yearling, the writer of Daring Do?” Before Daring Do/A.K. Yearling got a chance to answer, she was interrupted by the pony continuing. “Of course you are! Wow, I didn’t realize how much you looked like your character until just now. But this is great! We’re your biggest fans! We’re the Lost Tribe of Daring Do Fans!”
“How is that a tribe or lost?”
“We’ve been wondering that ourselves,” said the pony with a frown.
“Well, anyway,” said Daring Do, “if you’re such fans, you’ll help me out, right?”
“Sure! We’ll take you back to our place and help fix our your injuries.”
Some time later…
“Well,” said Daring Do, “the wings are still stuck, but I guess I’ll have to get some kind of advanced solution to get rid of this glue. Anyway, thanks for the help.”
“Great!” said one of them. “Now you can repay us by writing the next book while you’re here! No need to go anywhere else.”
“Well, um, I kind of need to travel to get inspiration, so–” started Daring Do before getting cut off.
“Oh, pshaw! You’ve got fans! All the inspiration you need is right here!” Her eyes suddenly took on a more sinister look. “And you’re not going anywhere until you write a book that’s to our expectations. We found the last one a bit disappointing.”
Uh-oh, thought Daring Do to herself. Well, as annoying as this will probably be, it shouldn’t be that hard, right?
“Oh boy!” said one of the members of the Lost Tribe of Daring Do fans. “Finally! We’ll have Daring Do and Dr. Caballeron get together!”
“Nah, she clearly belongs with Carapace from Mare Do Well. Have them meet and fall in love in a crossover!”
“You’re both wrong!” said yet another. “Daring Do needs no man! She’s a strong and independent mare!”
As those three continued arguing in the background, the original unnamed pony turned back to Daring Do. “See? All you have to do is write something to satisfy all of us, and you can go!”
Life is pain, thought Daring Do to herself.