Love Tap of Marendelle

by Godslittleprincess


The Cursed Temple, Part 2

         Early the next morning, Daring, Quibble, and the two royals made their way through the dense underbrush of the Yocatlan Jungle.  Everypony was apprehensive yet determined.  If any of them felt any fear at all, they hid it well, except for a certain earth pony stallion who was expressing his worry rather vocally.
          “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” squealed Quibble Pants.
          “Quib, you know I love you, but we’re not turning back no matter how many times you say that,” his wife snapped.
          “Would you like to know the probability of us ending up just like all the other explorers that went looking for the Temple of Olmec?”
          “Never tell me the odds.”
          “It’s high,” Quibble blurted out anyway, earning him a stern glare from his wife.  “It’s very high.”
          “How will we even know we’re getting close?” asked Love Tap.
          Suddenly, Daring Do stopped, causing the rest of the group to stop with her.  They saw in front of them a trail made up of cut underbrush, pony tracks, and skid marks.  Next to the trail was a pony skull mounted on a pole.
          Sensing the group’s presence, the skull’s eye sockets glowed with a sickly green light as an identically colored mist billowed forth from its open mouth.  Then, it spoke, with an ominous moan saying, “Dead mares tell no tales.  Dead mares tell no tales” before falling deathly silent.
          Quibble looked from the skull to the trail and back again before saying, “Did Caballeron take stupid pills this morning?”
          “We better hurry and catch up to him before it’s too late,” Daring stated, running down the trail, Cinnamon and Love Tap following suit.
          “We just got a cryptic warning from a skull.  A skull!” Quibble cried, lagging a bit behind.
          When the group reached the end of the trail, they found Caballeron and his stallions by some rafts near what looked like a moat of sorts.  The stallions were loading crates of dynamite onto one raft and attaching it to another raft, which was presumably going to be used to carry the ponies across.  Caballeron and his henchponies had their backs turned from the trail, so they didn’t notice the group’s arrival.
          Love Tap stepped forward and, with a voice that could have intimidated entire armies of warhorses, commanded the villains, “Go no further!”
          Caballeron and his stallions stopped and turned towards them, many of them still quaking from the forcefulness of Love Tap’s order.
          “Why, your majesties, Daring Do, and whoever you are,” Caballeron greeted, causing Quibble’s annoyed scowl to deepen.  “I was under the impression that I had gone somewhere that not even you would dare venture.”
          “Then why come here in the first place?!” Quibble practically screamed, his barely contained exasperation showing more with each word.  “Rumors of dark magic, thousands of years’ worth of missing ponies, and a talking skull warning you about impending death not enough for you?”
          “You’re not actually foolish enough to believe that roughly 50 crates of dynamite are going to be able to protect you from whatever dark magic this place has, aren’t you?” Cinnamon Swirl scoffed.
          “We’ll see about that,” Caballeron declared, pulling a vial from one of his pockets and throwing it at the group’s direction.  The vial shattered as it hit the ground, releasing a red fog that quickly enveloped every pony.
          Daring, Quibble, and the royals coughed violently as they waved their hooves, trying to fan the smoke away.  When the haze finally cleared, Caballeron was already almost halfway across the moat.
          “If we’re smart, we won’t follow them,” Quibble quipped.  Daring responded with a stern look.
          “What?” Quibble whined.  “It’s not like he’s in any IMMEDIATE danger.”
          No sooner had Quibble uttered those words when the royals saw what looked like sapphire torpedoes zip through the water towards Caballeron and his stallions.  One of them leapt out of the water and bit the rope connecting the dynamite raft to the passenger raft, its knife-like teeth slicing through the rope as if it was nothing but a strand of cotton candy.  Before Caballeron could even react to having his trump card snatched out from under him, the rafts were surrounded by the frightful creatures.  Most of them were tearing the rafts apart bit by bit with their teeth, and a few of them were leaping out of the water, trying to get a bite out of the ponies themselves.  The villain and his henchponies screamed in terror and thrashed about in a wild panic.
          “What sorcery is this?!” Caballeron squealed in an embarrassingly girlish manner.
          “Me and my big mouth,” Quibble groaned.
          Meanwhile, Love Tap began looking through her saddlebag for something to distract the strange creatures with.
          “Uh, Love,” Cinnamon pointed out.  “I’m no expert, but I think those are barracudas, and last time I checked, barracudas are carnivores.”
          “Meaning none of our food is going to be able to distract them,” Love Tap sighed, giving up the search in frustration.
          Daring scanned the shore and saw four other rafts parked on the sand bank.
          “Get on,” Daring urged, hopping onto the one of the rafts.
          “You have got to be joking,” her husband deadpanned.
          Screams of “Help!” and “I want to live!” rose from the raft drifting in the middle of the moat.  Love Tap and Cinnamon looked to each other and then to Daring, then to Quibble, and back to each other again.  They nodded once firmly, and the former queen climbed onto the raft next to Daring while her husband began to push it towards the water.
          “Hey!  Wait for me!” Quibble called, rushing over to help Cinnamon push.
          The stallions jumped onto the raft as it hit the water while Daring began to paddle towards the villains in distress and the battery of barracudas surrounding them.
          When the intrepid adventurers and their respective spouses got close enough, Daring began to slap the water, yelling, “Hey, ‘cudas!  Come and get it!”
          The barracudas stopped attacking Caballeron’s rafts for maybe half a second before they turned and sped towards Daring’s splashing.
          “Umm, I think we got their attention,” Quibble whimpered.  “Now what?”
          “Now,” Cinnamon replied, picking up one of the extra oars, “we get slap happy.”  He saw a barracuda approaching, jaws open, and with a mighty WHACK struck it square on the head.  Disoriented, the monstrous fish shook itself and swam away while Cinnamon continued to defend the raft against its brethren.  Daring began to do the same with her own oar.
          Meanwhile, Love Tap shouted at Caballeron and his stallions, “Quick!  Turn back while you still can!”
          Caballeron looked at the group of heroes, eyes wide in confusion and surprise.  Then, he looked towards the empty shore, smirked deviously, and ordered his henchponies to paddle towards it.
          Quibble saw this and screamed “That ungrateful—!”
          “DUCK!”  Love yelled, grabbing an oar and raising it high.  A barracuda leapt out of the water, its gaping maw making a beeline for Quibble’s head.  Quibble ducked as Love swung the oar, sending the demon fish flying a good distance before it landed back in the water with a splash.
          “Wait.  Hold on,” Quibble paused in realization.  “What are barracudas doing in fresh water?  And, why in Equestria are they blue?”
          “If I had to take a guess,” Love Tap grunted, sending another few fish flying, “they’re probably from Olmec’s dark magic experiments.”
          “Well, good news is fewer of these things are attacking us now,” Cinnamon noted as he began to use his oar for its intended purpose, “which means we can go forward.”
          “What?!” Quibble cried.  “Are we really doing this?  Please tell me we’re not still going after Dr. Terrible Accent.”
          “I would,” his wife replied, “but that’d be lying.”
          Quibble groaned miserably but began to help Cinnamon row anyway.
          “Hey, if it makes you feel any better, Quib,” Daring continued, “the moment we find him I’ll hold him down, and you can punch.”


          Soon enough, the four of them reached shore and once again began to trek deeper into the jungle.  Eventually, they managed to reach a clearing, and standing impressively in the middle of that clearing was none other than…
          “The Temple of Olmec,” Daring gasped, gaping at the massive structure in front of her.”
          Quibble let out a whistle.  “You know, if I didn’t know it was cursed, I’d call it an amazing feat of ancient architecture.”
          “Hey, look,” Cinnamon pointed at a trail of muddled hoofprints leading from the jungle to the door of the temple.  Next to the door stood an enormous stone statue of a pony head wearing an ancient tribal headdress.
          “Oh, great,” griped Quibble Pants.  “They’re already inside.”
          “How are we going to stop Caballeron without setting hoof in the temple and getting cursed ourselves?” asked Love Tap.
          However, before anypony could answer, the stone pony head emitted a deep, rumbling groan, causing the ground to shake.  Its eyes flashed a menacing ruby color, and its mouth creaked open as it began to speak.
          “Welcome to the Hidden Temple,” the stone head announced suddenly, causing Quibble to yelp in surprise.  “I am King Olmec.  Enter if you dare for untold riches await you in the Treasure Room.  Race through the temple and find the Pendant of Life for it and it alone will open the room.  You have until the next sunrise to find the pendant and open the Treasure Room.  If not, you will be cursed to turn to dust.  The choices are yours and yours alone.  Good luck.”
          The giant head fell silent, and its eyes stopped glowing.  The four ponies looked to each other in confusion, unable to say anything.  Finally, Cinnamon Swirl stepped forward and approached the statue.
          “Umm, look, we’re not here for your treasure,” Cinnamon began.  “Could you just, I don’t know, give us the earth pony stallion with the accent and five o’clock shadow and his henchponies?  It’s kind of important that we apprehend him.  I’ll tell you what.  If you hoof him over, then we’ll just be on our way, and you can keep your treasure to yourself.  What do you say to that?”
          The statue’s eyes glowed once more, and it let out a groan as the doors of the temple slid open.
          “Umm, is that a yes?” asked Quibble Pants.
          “I don’t think so,” Love Tap squeaked, turning around and pointing back towards the jungle.  Out from the shadows of the trees, several tribal warriors emerged, their faces heavily decorated with war paint.
          The giant stone head yelled something in a strange language that caused Daring’s eyes to widen.  The tribal ponies let out a war cry and began to charge towards them.
          “Go!  Go!” Daring cried, urging her companions to the only route that wasn’t cut off by tribal warriors, the open door of the temple.
          “No time to explain!” Daring shouted when her husband began to protest.
          Once the four of them were inside, the doors quickly slammed shut.
          “Dare, what’s the deal with making us run inside?!  Did you forget that this place was cursed or something?!”  Quibble screamed.
          “From what I have been able to gather, those ponies were temple guards, and Olmec had just given them the order to kill us,” Daring explained.  “It was either run in and try our luck or—shkt!”  Daring ended her last sentence with a head-slicing motion.
          “Wait a minute,” exclaimed Love Tap incredulously.  “We tell Olmec that we don’t want to play his sick game, and he makes us play anyway?!”
          “They didn’t call him Olmec the Ruthless for nothing,” Cinnamon added, taking a good look at their surroundings.  “Now, we know why nopony who has gone in this direction has ever returned.”
          “Look, if we want to get out of here alive AND stop Caballeron, we’ve got to find the Pendant of Life and open the Treasure Room before he does and before the sun rises tomorrow,” Daring exposited.  “It’s a good thing we’ve got two adventurers and a puzzle geek with in our group.”
          “What makes you think I’ll be able to figure out how to get out of here?” whined Quibble.
          “Because if you don’t, we all turn to dust, and I don’t think you want that,” Daring retorted.
          Quibble opened his mouth to argue back but shut it again, unable to think up a satisfactory counterargument.  Instead, he sighed and rolled his eyes, following the rest of the group up a flight of stairs.
          At the end of the stairs was a door, and next to the door was button, which Daring Do pressed.  The door swung open, leading to a room.  Inside the room were four orange statues, and on the wall was some kind of writing.
          “Huh,” Quibble noted, studying the script.  “I can’t quite make out the writing.”
          “I can,” Daring replied.  “It says ‘Room of the Four Statues.’”
          “Of course it does.”
          “Look, a door,” Love Tap pointed to the other side of the room where there was indeed a door.  However, unlike the last door, there was no button next to it.  In fact, the door didn’t seem to have any obvious means of opening it.
          Cinnamon approached the door and examined the frame looking for any useful cracks.  Finding none, he then slammed his shoulder against the door once, twice, then thrice.  The door still stood unopened.  He was about to turn around and start bucking it down when his wife stopped him.
          “Dear, I don’t think that’s going to work,” Love Tap flatly stated.
          “There’s got to be a way to open the door,” said Quibble, leaning on the head of a statue depicting a Cipactli.  The head was pushed downwards, causing a knife to fly from its mouth.  The knife flew straight towards Love Tap, who thankfully had ducked before the knife could make contact, and lodged into the wall.
          “Get away from that!” Cinnamon shouted as Quibble recoiled from the statue, both stallions utterly horrified by what had almost happened.
          “Wait a minute,” Daring gasped in realization.  “That’s it!  Quib, you genius!”
          “Dare, I am utterly flattered, but other than almost killing a royal, I really have no idea what I just did,” Quibble replied in confusion.
          “One of these statue heads must open the door.”
          “Well, considering that one of the statues just tried to kill us, I’m guessing that trying each statue randomly is out of the question,” Love noted.
          “You know what they say, ‘One of these things is not like the others,’” Cinnamon quoted.  “Let’s see.  The statue that fired that knife looks like a Cipactli, and the others look like a cockatrice, a basilisk, and an iguana of unusual size.”
          “Well, Cipactlis are full of razor sharp teeth and can eat a pony in one bite,” Quibble began.  “Cockatrices turn ponies to stone, basilisks are extremely venomous, and iguanas are usually pretty calm unless provoked.”
          “It’s got to be the orange iguana,” Daring pointed out slamming the iguana statue’s head down.  Almost immediately, the door swung open.
          The four of them stepped through the door and found themselves on a small platform, staring at a chasm.  Daring Do found some writing on the platform, which read “The Pit of Despair,” because what ancient temple would be complete without one?  However, unlike the other Pits of Despair that she and Quibble Pants had encountered on previous adventures, this one had an eerie wailing and moaning coming out of it as if the voices of Olmec’s past victims still remained trapped below.  Additionally, when Daring reached her hoof across, she felt a powerful vertical air current blowing in and out of the chasm.
          “There’s no way I’ll be able to fly across with this freaky current,” Daring told her companions.
          “Hey, look,” Love Tap pointed along the walls, drawing the group’s attention towards the numerous depressions and protrusions on the walls.  “I bet that we can use them to climb our way across.”
          “Great idea, Love,” Cinnamon praised, “but first.”  He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out two harnesses and some rope.
          Love Tap shot him a look that clearly said, “Really, honey, really?”
          “It’s precautionary!” Cinnamon cried defensively as he strapped on one of the harnesses.  “Besides, out of everyone here, you’re the one with the least amount of climbing experience.”
          Love Tap just rolled her eyes but began strapping on her harness anyway.  After the two of them had finished harnessing themselves, Cinnamon linked the two of them together with the rope.
          The group began climbing on the walls, steadily crawling their way towards the platform on the other side of the pit.  Despite the distraction from the constant wailing and the ever present threat of either getting sucked down or blown away be the strange air current, the climb was rather uneventful, at least until they were roughly halfway across.
          “You know, other than the creep factor and the weird wind tunnel, this actually isn’t so bad,” Quibble noted.
          Right then and there, the several outcroppings began to sink into the wall including some of the ones that our heroes were holding onto, making them much harder to grip.
          “You just had to say something,” Love Tap deadpanned as she and everpony else quickly grabbed for more secure hoofholds.
          “Don’t worry,” Cinnamon assured.  “We should all make it across as long as we’re careful—WHOA!”
          Cinnamon managed to move his head and his left hoof just before a burst of fire shot out of the hole he had been holding onto.
          “And lucky,” Cinnamon quickly added.  “We also need to be lucky.”
          Fortunately, all four of them managed to advance a significant distance towards the platform despite having to evade fires and work around disappearing rocks.  Pretty soon, Daring and Quibble reached the platform while Love Tap and Cinnamon weren’t too far behind.
          “Don’t worry, Love, we’re almost there,” Cinnamon called.  At that, Cinnamon made a flying leap for the platform, dragging along his wife by the rope connecting them as she screamed.  Cinnamon managed to grab hold of the edge of the platform and with help from Daring and Quibble, pulled himself and Love Tap onto solid ground.
          “Don’t you ever do that again!” Love Tap shrieked.  “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
          “Hey, at least, we’re not dodging flames anymore.”


          After giving Love Tap a few seconds to calm down, the four ponies continued to go down the hallway before turning into a corridor which lead to another door with a button.  Daring Do once again pressed the button and opened the door.
          Unlike the last room, this one seemed completely empty. On the walls was some writing which Daring translated as “The Jester’s Court” and four paintings.  The paintings were of an Earth pony juggling skulls, a unicorn juggling knives, a pegasus juggling lit torches, and an alicorn sitting regally among them with both its wings spread.  Upon closer examination, our four heroes saw that each painting had a button positioned on each outstretched appendage such as the arms, legs, heads, horns, and wings.
          “So, I’m guessing that one of these buttons is the way out,” Love Tap noted.
          “But which one?” Cinnamon added.
          “Well, if this puzzle is anything like the last one, we probably should avoid just randomly guessing,” said Quibble.
          “Let’s try the ones on the alicorn,” Daring suggested.  “It’s the only painting that isn’t juggling something.”
          Her husband nodded in agreement as she flew up to the painting and pressed each button one by one.  However, no matter which button she pressed, nothing happened.
          “Why isn’t anything opening?” asked Love Tap, looking around the room.
          “Nothing’s trying to kill us, so we must be on the right track,” Cinnamon noted.
          Quibble Pants took a good look at each of the paintings, examining the buttons and their positioning.  Then, he had an idea.
          “Dare,” Quibble called.  “I think you’re supposed to press yourself against all of the buttons at the same time.”
          “Okay,” Daring agreed, “but how do I do that?  I don’t have a horn, and I’ll have to stop flying in order to use my wings to press the buttons.”
          “I think I know,” said Cinnamon as he positioned himself under the painting.  “Ms. Do, if you wouldn’t mind, could you stand on my back?”
          “Umm, are you sure this is the best idea?” asked Quibble, looking at Cinnamon with concern.  “Maybe I should do it.”
          “Aw, come on,” scoffed Cinnamon as he helped Daring onto his back.  “I might be older than my prime, but I’m not that old.”
          Daring stood upright on Cinnamon’s back, pressing her head and wings against the buttons.
          “So, how are we going to reach the horn?” asked Daring.
          “Love, could you climb over us and press it?” Cinnamon requested.
          “Alright,” agreed Love Tap, carefully climbing over the precariously balanced tower of ponies.  She positioned herself on Daring’s shoulders and reached for the button on the horn.  She made contact and slammed it down triumphantly, causing a door on the ceiling to slide open.
          The three ponies carefully unstacked themselves before joining Quibble and heading towards the sudden spot of sunlight.  Cinnamon reached into his saddlebag for a grappling hook and tossed it through the opening.  After tugging on the rope a few times to make sure the hook was secure, the three Earth ponies began to climb while Daring flew right beside them.
          “Yes!”  Quibble cheered as everpony stepped out into the light.  “We’re out.  Now, let’s make a run for it before Giant Talking Stone Head knows we’re gone.”
          “Wait,” Daring pointed out.  “Firstly, Caballeron’s still in here, and bad guy or not, we can’t just leave him to get turned to dust.  Secondly, there’s no way somepony with Olmec’s reputation would make getting out this easy.”
          As if in response to her observations, a flock of purple parrots flew out of the jungle and circled around the temple.  One parrot lagged on a turn and slammed into an invisible barrier, bursting into a cloud of feathers as a result.
          “A force field?!”  Quibble cried in anger.  “He put up a stinkin’ force field?!”
          “Well, they didn’t call him Olmec the Ruthless for nothing,” Love Tap stammered, her eyes still wide with shock.
          “Ruthless?!”  Quibble continued, pacing back and forth.  “This is BEYOND ruthless!  This is cruel and unusual punishment!  It’s sadistic even!  Why I oughta—AAAAH!”
          In the middle of his ranting and pacing, Quibble Pants had stomped down hard on a button which opened a trap door that he just happened to be standing on, causing him to fall down a long slide of sorts.
          “Quib!” Daring cried, calling down the hole that her husband just fell through.
          “Quibble!  Are you still alive?” Cinnamon called down.
          “YES!  I’m still alive!” was Quibble’s loud and horribly annoyed answer.
          “Should we go after him?” asked Love Tap.
          “Hold on,” replied Daring before calling down the hole.  “Honey, is there anything dangerous down there?”
          “I don’t think so,” Quibble answered as he scanned his surroundings.  “Hang on.  I see some writing.”
          The writing was similar to the others they had encountered.  However, Quibble was able to recognize one of the symbols as being similar to a different ancient script’s symbol for snake.  The writing had, in fact, read “The Viper’s Nest,” but of course, there was nopony there to tell him that.
          “Dare, I can’t quite read all the writing, but I think there’s supposed to be snakes in here,” Quibble called up to the others.  “Although, I’m not seeing any right now.”
          “Okay,” came Daring’s answer.  “Just hang tight.  We’re coming down.”
          A few seconds later, Daring Do slid down the slide and landed where Quibble had first hit the ground.  She was followed by Cinnamon Swirl and Love Tap.
          “Well, since we’re pretty much stuck playing this sick game, let’s try and find a way out of here, shall we?” said Cinnamon.
          “Hey, there’s a door,” Daring pointed, flying to the other side of the room.  “It doesn’t look like it’s button-operated, but there’s a keyhole next to it.”
          “So, I guess we’ll just have to find the key,” noted Cinnamon.
          “Hey, here are some jars,” pointed Love Tap, running over to said jars.  “Maybe there’s a key in here—AAAAH!”
          Love Tap lifted the lid of one of the jars only to quickly clamp it back down again.
          “I think I found the snakes,” Love Tap squeaked, still holding the jar shut.
          “Hey, here are some more,” said Quibble, pointing out the other jars scattered about the room.
          “Quick, move them to the middle of the room,” ordered Daring.
          The four ponies pushed no less than twelve jars to the center of the room and carefully removed all of the lids.  Inside each jar was a single silver snake.  They were all alive and roughly the same size.  Some of them had black markings on their back while some were solid colored.  Some had rattles while others lacked them.
          “We are definitely not touching the rattlesnakes,” Cinnamon said flatly.
          “Well, that narrows down our choices to ten snakes.  What a huge improvement,” Quibble deadpanned.  “Seriously though, did they all have to be silver?  How are we supposed to tell them apart?”
          “Come on,” Daring grunted, pressing her hooves to her temples.  “The key’s got to be in one of these jars.  We’ve just got to think.”
          Love Tap, however, had been studying the snakes closely and noticed something that nopony else had.  Then, she gasped in realization and pointed towards one particular jar excitedly.
          “That one!” she cried, pointing toward a jar with a solid, rattle-less snake with an oddly shaped head.  “All these other snakes are vipers.  That one’s a python.”
          “How did you know that?” asked Quibble quizzically.
          “I read up on dangerous animals before we left Marendelle.”
          “You certainly came prepared,” said Cinnamon, looking very impressed with his wife.
          “Well, what are we waiting for?” said Quibble, reaching his hoof into the jar.
          “Quib, wait,” Daring warned a bit too late.
          “YOW!” Quibble shouted as he yanked his hoof out, clutching the key.  Clamped to his hoof by its jaws was an angry python.  Quibble abruptly jerked his hoof, sending the python flying across the room before it landed on the floor and slithered away.
          “I guess it’s a good thing that pythons aren’t venomous,” Cinnamon noted to Quibble’s annoyance.


          After Quibble finished nursing his python bite, he inserted the key into the keyhole and opened the door.  The door opened to a corridor with several doors lined up to the left and to the right.  After quickly deliberating with each other, the group decided to randomly select a room from the right side.  The four ponies entered the room they selected, and on a pedestal in the middle of the room was…
          “The Pendant of Life!” Love Tap cried, running to grab it.  However, before she could reach it, it was suddenly snatched away by a small, fast, green-colored paw.
          “Hey!” Love Tap cried, her eyes darting to the direction that she saw the little thief dash to.  The thief answered her with a mocking laugh.
          “Creepy little green monkey!” growled Quibble as he chased after the animal.  “Give that back!”
          The monkey, however, simply darted away again and disappeared into a monkey-sized hole in the ceiling.
          “We’ve got to go after it,” exclaimed Cinnamon, noticing a trap door on the ceiling as he once again unpacked his grappling hook.  “What do we have to do to open the door?”
          Once again, the group found some writing on the wall, which Daring read as “The Shrine of the Silver Monkey.”
          “Look,” Love Tap called as she grabbed an object off of one of the shelves on the wall.  The object in question was a silver monkey head attached to a long silver pole.
          “And here’s the torso,” observed Cinnamon, grabbing a different silver-colored object off of a different shelf.
          “Which makes this the base,” Daring followed suit.
          As the group was gathering statue parts, they suddenly heard hoofsteps in the outside corridor approaching along with the sound of ponies saying something in a strange language.
          “Temple guards,” Daring gasped.  “Olmec’s sent them to slow us down.”
          “Quick,” Love Tap ordered.  “We need to assemble the silver monkey on the pedestal.”
          Daring Do and Cinnamon quickly piled their parts on the pedestal, but before Love Tap could attach the head, however, Quibble stopped her.
          “Wait,” he hissed, noticing that the parts were oriented the wrong way.  He quickly readjusted the base and torso before telling Love Tap, “Okay, now.”
          Love Tap slammed the monkey head into the place, opening the door on the ceiling.  Cinnamon hurriedly tossed the grappling hook up the door and quickly checked if it was secure before leading the three Earth ponies in a mad scramble to avoid getting caught by the temple guards.  Daring went through the door first followed by Cinnamon, Love Tap, and Quibble Pants.  As soon as the last pony got through the trap door, Daring hit the button next to it causing it to slam shut just as the temple guards were entering the shrine.
          After the four of them let out the breath that they didn’t know they had been holding, our heroes tentatively took in their surroundings.  They were surrounded by trees, and the room was almost as dim as the dusk.
          “Are we in some kind of enchanted indoor forest with terrible lighting?” Quibble observed.
          “It looks that way,” his wife replied, pulling a flashlight out of her saddlebag.  The light ended up shining on a wooden sign with ancient writing that read “The Dark Forest.”
          A wild, excited chittering interrupted the ponies’ thoughts, causing them to turn towards the sound.  Sitting contently on a tree branch was the green monkey, clutching the pendant and mocking them with its laughter.
          “Ugh,” Quibble groaned.  “How are we going to get that little creep to give us back the pendant?”
          However, Love Tap had already pulled an apple out of her saddlebag and was attempting to see if the monkey would like to trade.
          “Come here, Mr. Monkey,” coaxed Love Tap, extending the apple towards the green primate.  “Would you like a nice, juicy, red apple in exchange for the pendant we need to get out of here alive?”
          The monkey cocked its head in curiosity before it cautiously approached Love Tap and the apple.  Once the monkey got close enough, Cinnamon made a grab for the pendant as the monkey made a grab for the apple.
          “Got it!” Cinnamon cried in triumph, holding up the pendant.
          “Oh, thank goodness,” Love Tap sighed in relief as she sat down underneath one of the trees.  Her relief quickly turned to panic however when she suddenly felt two rough wooden arms wrap around her, causing her to scream.
          “Love!” Cinnamon called out, hearing her cry.
          As Love Tap futilely attempted to wiggle out of the tree’s grasp, a pony’s face began to appear on the trunk of the tree.  Faces appeared on the trunks of the other trees as well.
          “The trees are alive!” Quibble cried, his eyes darting form one tree face to the next.
          The tree holding Love Tap turned towards the group and shouted something at them in the same language that they had heard Olmec and the temple guards speaking in.
          “It wants us to give them the pendant or else,” Daring translated.
          “Or else what?” asked Quibble, not really wanting to know the answer.
          As if in response to Quibble’s question, the tree tightened its grip on its hostage, causing her to cry out again.
          “Cinnamon, don’t give it to them,” Love Tap pleaded, struggling to breathe through the tree’s crushing grip.
          Cinnamon looked from the pendant to Love Tap to the tree.  He sighed and reluctantly held the pendant out to the tree.  The tree swiped the pendant with one of its branches and flung Love Tap forward where she landed in her husband’s arms.
          “You alright?” Cinnamon asked her.
          “I’m fine,” she replied, still gasping a bit, “but how are we going to get out of here now?”
          The evil tree let out a cackle and said something that sounded like a gloat before throwing the Pendant of Life on the ground, causing it to break in half.  The pendant halves glowed green before disappearing into two wisps of magic traveling in different directions.  Then, a trap door opened under our four heroes’ hooves, dropping them down a chute.
          The two couples slid downwards for what felt like hours, screaming all the way.  Finally, they landed hard on the floor of another dimly lit room.
          “Well, this is perfect,” said Quibble sarcastically.  “We just lost the one thing we needed to not turn to dust when the sun rises.”
          “We still have a chance,” assured Daring.  “If we didn’t, why would the temple bother keeping us alive?”
          “Besides the fact that Olmec the Cruel and Unusual might want to toy with us until our last moments, you mean?”
          “All I’m saying is that we can’t just give up, not now.”
          The adventurous couple’s conversation was interrupted by several banging sounds and shouting.  The two of them and their companions scanned their surroundings and noticed that they were surrounded by sarcophaguses.  Standing across from them were three headless pony skeletons each dressed in a different set of ancient tribal wear.  Daring once again found ancient script on the wall and read it as “The Tomb of the Headless Kings.”
          Upon a closer listen, the four ponies realized that the banging and shouting were coming from the sarcophaguses.  Love Tap opened one, and who should fall out other than the source of their present troubles.
          “You?!” Dr. Caballeron cried, seeing his rescuer.
          The other three followed suit and found Caballeron’s henchstallions in the other sarcophaguses.
          “I can’t believe we’re saving you,” Quibble griped, resisting the urge to straight up beat the villain.  “You left us to be eaten by barracudas and went inside this madhouse of death despite all our warnings.”
          “Let me guess,” Daring deadpanned.  “The temple guards caught you and put you in here.  So predictable.”
          Caballeron said nothing but scowled as he reached for his sword.
          “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” scoffed Cinnamon.
          “Oh, and why not?” the villain growled.
          “Because we’re your only chance of not getting turned to dust.  That’s why,” Love Tap said in her mom voice.
          Caballeron glared at her but sheathed his sword anyway.
          “Well, let’s not waste any more time,” Daring took charge.  “We don’t know how much time we have until sunrise.”
          Daring Do looked up to the ceiling and found a net hanging from it containing what looked like bones.  She saw a vine attached to the net and gave it a pull, causing all of the net’s contents to tumble to the floor.
          “Start looking,” Daring ordered.  “Our way out could be somewhere in there.”
          As the ponies searched, Quibble found a skull wearing a tribal headdress among the bones.  He picked it up and studied it.  Then, he looked at the headless skeletons and noticed that the headdress matched the clothes on one of the skeletons.  He attached the head on the skeleton in question, and a door on the side of the room swung open.
          “Out of our way,” Caballeron shouted.  He and his henchponies rushed for the open door, shoving everypony else aside in the process.
          “Gee, thanks for getting the door for us, Quibble Pants,” Quibble angrily role-played.  “Oh, no problem, ungrateful bad guy.”
          Quibble and his companions followed the horde of villains through the door.  Inside the room, half of the henchponies were taking turns trying to force down a side door and the other half was stacked one on the other with the pony on top trying to punch through a trap door on the ceiling.  Nopony seemed to have noticed the shelves upon shelves of jars or the three empty pedestals with keyholes in the middle or the writing on the wall that read “The King’s Storeroom.”
          “Unbelievable,” Quibble deadpanned.  He walked in and began to examine the pedestals and the shelves.  “Let’s start looking in the jars.  I think the keys are inside.”
          The two royals and their friends carefully emptied each jar and set them aside.  So far, all they found was cornmeal.  Caballeron noticed what the four were doing.  He went to the shelf closest to him and knocked it over with a crash.
          “What are you doing?!” Love Tap cried.  “Those could have been studied for historical purposes.”
          Caballeron lifted up the shelf revealing a pile of cornmeal and broken pottery.  He scowled at the former queen and said, “Do you want to get out of here alive or study pottery?  Your choice.”
          Our four heroes shared a look with one another and made the same realization.
          “That’s got to be the smartest thing that guy’s said all day,” stated Quibble.
          Reluctantly, our four heroes followed Dr. Caballeron’s lead, breaking several jars at once and sifting through cornmeal and pottery fragments for keys.
          “Found it,” called Daring, handing Quibble the key.  Quibble studied the key’s teeth and inserted it into the right keyhole.  To everypony’s surprise, both the trap door and the side door opened.
          “So which one do we go through?” asked Quibble.
          “Simple,” answered Dr. Caballeron.  “I take my henchponies down one door, and you four can take the other door.”
          “Uh, no way we’re letting you out of our sight.  How do we know that you won’t double-cross us after we split?”
          “A better question would be ‘How are you going to search this entire temple for the Pendant of Life before the sun rises?’”
          “Okay, fine,” Daring Do agreed, “but if you get locked in a room again, we’re definitely not dropping what we’re doing to save you.”
          Caballeron merely nodded and led his stallions out the side door.  Cinnamon once again pulled out his grappling hook and the group made their way up the trap door.
          “You know, Dare, how are we going to find the pendant before time runs out?” Quibble pointed out.  “This time we’ve got to look for two pendant halves instead of a whole pendant.”
          “Hope we get incredibly lucky?” Daring suggested.
          The group entered the upper room only to find themselves facing off against three of red jaguars.  The jaguars snarled at them menacingly, fangs bared.
          “Uh, Dare?” Quibble squeaked out nervously.
          “Yes, Quib” Daring replied.
          “What does the writing on the wall say?”
          “‘The Jaguars’ Lair’”
          “Of course it does.”
          The group huddled close and kept still as they scanned their surroundings.  Their only way out appeared to be a button-operated trap door underneath a tall pillar, and the only way to get there was past the jaguars.
          “Oh snap,” said Love Tap, her eyes falling on something hanging from a jaguar’s neck.  Her companions turned to where she was looking, and their pupils shrank, for hanging from the jaguar’s neck was half of the Pendant of Life.
          “This sick game just got a whole lot harder,” said Daring, pulling out her whip.
          The biggest jaguar let out a roar and pounced at them.  The four scattered, temporarily avoiding the fierce predator.  The other two jaguars also began to attack them, scattering them further.
          Daring cracked her whip several times, stunning the jaguars.  However, neither she nor her friends could find a clear path towards the exit, and nopony was close enough to grab the pendant half.
          Daring cracked her whip again, more aggressively this time, and the smaller jaguars began to back away.  Love Tap took the opportunity to dash forward and grab the pendant half from the jaguar’s neck.
          Alerted by her sudden movement, the jaguar blindly swiped at her, giving her a shallow scratch on her shoulder in the process.  Cinnamon grabbed the jaguar by the tail and gave it a good yank.  The jaguar growled in pain and pounced on him.  The jaguar had Cinnamon Swirl pinned, but before it could take a bite out of the former king, somepony pelted it with a loaf of bread followed by a bag of pistachios and a pear.  Using the distraction to his advantage, Cinnamon unpinned himself and grabbed Love Tap.  The two of them quickly ran for the pillar and climbed up towards the trap door.
          Quibble steeled himself, took a deep breath, and let out a loud, crazed-sounding yell as he dashed for the pillar, dodging jaguars as he did so.  Daring also made her way to the pillar, using her whip to stun the jaguars into submission.  Once everypony had reached the top of the pillar, Cinnamon pushed the button and opened the door, allowing them all to climb through.
          The door had led to the middle of a corridor across an open window.  Through the window, the four ponies could see that night had already fallen.
          “Scarlet and Punch must be freaking out by now.  Ow,” Love Tap pointed out.
          “If we don’t somehow miraculously put an end to Olmec’s sick game, they’ll come after us and get turned to dust, too,” Cinnamon added, tending to his wife’s injury.
          “Then, we better keep moving,” said Daring, going down the corridor.
          “Do you even know where this corridor leads?” asked Quibble.
          “Nope.”


          After walking for what felt like hours, the two couples eventually reached a set of rooms.  Daring chose a room at random and the four of them entered.  Daring immediately regretted her decision.
          “Spiders!” she squealed, jumping into her husband’s arms.
          “Dare, it’s just one big web.  We don’t actually know if there are spiders in it,” Quibble reassured her.
          “Can’t we just go back and try a different room?”
          “We could, but I don’t think that would be a good idea,” said Love Tap, pointing at something in the middle of the web.
          “The pendant half!” cried Cinnamon.
          “Look, why don’t you wait here, and I’ll go after it?” Quibble offered his wife, setting her back on the ground.
          Quibble approached the web and struck it with his hoof, hoping to swipe through it, but instead, his hoof got stuck.
          “Oh, come on!” he cried, yanking his hoof free.  Thinking fast, he reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a club, a strip of cloth, lantern oil, and a box of matches and quickly made a torch.
          Quibble held the torch to the web, causing it to shrivel back.  Pretty soon, he had burned his way toward the pendant half and returned to his companions with it in hoof.
          “Okay, now we just need to find the Treasure Room,” noted Love Tap.
          “But where would Olmec put it?” added Cinnamon Swirl.
          “Well, I’ve been to enough of these temples to know that the most important room is almost always at the very top,” said Daring.
          “And I know a short cut,” said Quibble as he went out the room and lead the others back the way they came.
          “We’ll just climb out the window and climb up along the outside until we reach the top,” Quibble explained.  “This way, we’ll have less of a chance of running into temple guards and getting slowed down by killer puzzles.”
          “Great idea, Quib,” Daring praised her husband as she flew out the window.
          The four of them proceeded with Quibble’s plan, which worked perfectly, at least until they were spotted by temple guards on the second story from the top.
          “Hurry up!” Daring cried, as she pulled her friends into an open window at the top.  “We’re almost there.”
          Love Tap climbed in last, and the group quickly ran down the hall spurred by the sound of rapidly approaching temple guards.
          The four reached a section of the hallway that divided into two different directions.  Temple guards cut them off from the section directly in front of them, forcing them to go down the other way.
          Suddenly, Cinnamon skidded to a stop and unsheathed his sword.
          “Cinnamon?” Love Tap called.
          “Keep going.  I’ll hold them off,” Cinnamon called back.
          “Quib, go with her.  I’m going to stay and help,” Daring commanded, pulling out her whip.
          “Your Highness, come on,” Quibble pulled Love Tap further down the hallway.
          As the two continued to run, Love Tap noticed that both she and Quibble were giving off a faint gold glow.
          “Oh, no.  It’s almost sunrise,” she cried.
          “I can see a door just straight ahead of us.  We’ve just got to make it,” Quibble encouraged.
          The two of them drew closer and closer to the door.  However, the glow was getting stronger as well.  Desperately, Love Tap gave her pendant half to Quibble.  Quibble charged forward and with a flying leap inserted the pendant into the slot on the door.  The glow surrounding the two of them vanished while a golden burst of light exploded from the door and enveloped the whole temple.
          Cinnamon and Daring were still in the middle of fighting temple guards when they were all surrounded by gold light.  When the light dissipated, Cinnamon Swirl and Daring Do only found piles of dust where the temple guards had been.
          When Love Tap and Quibble Pants were finally able to see, the door to the Treasure Room had opened.  Their spouses joined them soon after, and the four of them cautiously entered the room.  When they took in their surroundings, they could hardly believe their eyes.
          “Whoa!” Cinnamon gaped.  “Olmec really did collect the loot of a thousand lands.  Swords and silks from Neighpon, ivory from Zebrica, bronze from Trot, and loads of other treasures.”
          “No way!” Love Tap gasped approaching a bowl filled to the brim with large pink pearls.  “These are rare Marendellian pink pearls.  These were worth a fortune even back in Marendelle’s pearl farming days.”
          “Well, now that Olmec’s curse is broken, Quibble and I are going to notify the nearest museum to send archaeologists over here.  There’s a national treasure here to send to every corner of Equestria,” said Daring.
          “So, what are you two royals planning on doing next?” Quibble asked.
          “I don’t know about Cinnamon, but I think I’ve already had more adventure than I had hoped to experience,” said Love Tap.  “A nice relaxing trip to Haywaii sure sounds nice.”
          “I hear that,” Cinnamon agreed before his face changed to that of confusion.  “Although, I can’t help but feel like we’re forgetting something.”


          Meanwhile, somewhere in the temple…
          “Help!” cried Dr. Caballeron.  “Get us out of this bone cage!”


          “Whatever it is, it’s probably not that important,” Quibble replied to Cinnamon.