Little seemed to move quickly in the Get Out Inn. The air was hot and heavy, and had there been even the slightest hint of humidity it would have been completely unbearable- -but the dry heat of Southern Equestria combined with the slow, lazy turn of the ceiling fans overhead created a climate that ponies could take shelter in.
The entire environment seemed to be lethargic and slow to change. Few ponies came here, but the ones that did tended to be either regulars or the rough sort that preferred anonymity. On the far side of the dark front room, a group of ragged and scarred individuals were quietly betting chips of glowpaz on a card game as they passed around a salt lick. Across from them on the edge of the bar, an ancient, balding griffon was telling stories about some half-forgotten war to a group of ponies that seemed to care substantially more about their cider than whatever it was he was trying to say. In the center, near the couches, and elderly tourist had fallen asleep once again with his newspaper on his face; the edges of it curled up as he snored softly. The innkeeper, Trotsworth, watched over all of it without caring terribly much as she slowly polished a glass. She preferred days like this, when it was quiet and orderly. It was why she had emigrated to Southern Equestria in the first place.
The door to the inn opened. Light momentarily flooded the inside, and the card players grumbled. No one else looked up, save for Trotsworth, who obligatorily watched every pony who entered her inn. This particular pony was obviously not a ruffian, but likewise, he was not the type that would normally be expected to even approach an establishment like this. He was a unicorn- -which in itself was already a rarity in this part of the world- -and, as many of his race did, his coat was more bright and colorful than that of Pegasi or earth-ponies. He was light teal, with a mane that was mostly blue save for a single streak of white. He wore his hair in a long, neat ponytail, and also wore a pair of thick glasses. As if to further cement his appearance as a hopeless academic, he was wearing an olive green jacket with patched elbows despite the intense heat.
Almost as soon as he entered, he nearly dropped the stack of papers and files that he was holding; as he moved to catch them, his spectacles slid off his nose. He caught those too, but only barely. Trotsworth sighed. The stallion confirmed what she had already come to know: that any stallion with brains enough to amount to anything more than a brigand or an eggplant vendor was too hopeless to ever get around to it.
The stallion nearly dropped his supplies twice before he finally reached the bar.
“Hello there!” he said. His voice was unpleasantly nasal, but had a strange accent that Trotsworth had never heard before. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything to drink, would you? I’m positively parched!”
“That depends.”
“Depends? On what?”
“On whether you know what you want to order. I’m busy, I can’t stand around here forever.”
The stallion looked around, confused. “Oh…well, yes, I see…just some water would be fine, if you have any.”
“I have it,” said Trotsworth, pouring a glass. “But you’ll have to pay. We don’t accept bits- -”
The stallion levitated a small piece of glowpaz to her. He seemed to notice her mild surprise, and smiled. “I read several volumes on Somnambular culture on my way here.”
“Right…of course you did.” Trotsworth pushed the glass toward the stallion, and he lifted it in his orange magic and drank heartily from the glass.
“Ah!” he said. “Thank you!”
“And I suppose you’ll be wanting to rent a room, too?”
“Oh. Well, no, actually. You see, I’m looking for somepony. I heard that she may be staying here…”
Trotsworth frowned. She continued to polish a glass for a long moment, and then sighed. “Fine. If you want to buy a room, find me. And remember, this is a respectable, peaceful establishment.” She glared at him. “Don’t try anything.”
The stallion watched as she walked away, finding himself terribly confused. She had not helped him terribly much, and he did not know what to do. So, he instead focused himself on drinking his water, this time more slowly to prevent himself from getting sick. He did not know how much time passed before he saw a glass of inky courant juice drop onto the bar beside him, and a pony follow it into one of the stools.
The pony sat down and took a long drink from her glass. “So,” she said. “I heard you were looking for somepony.”
“I was, actually. If you might perhaps know where I could f…” He trailed off as he turned his head and actually saw the pony sitting beside him. As her voice had suggested, she was a mare, and a deceptively young looking one at that. Her coat was pale brown and her mane streaked with many shades of gray. Both were drab colors more fitting of an earth-pony than a Pegasus like her. The only spot of color on her apart from her dull green coat were her remarkably violet eyes, both of which were fixed on her dark-colored juice.
“Celestia’s warm rump,” whispered the stallion in awe.
“Excuse me?”
“My- -my apologies! It’s only that you look exactly like you are described in the books, and as depicted on the cover art! You’re…you’re Daring Do.”
“In the flesh,” she sighed. “But it’s a little odd. Not a lot of ponies this far south read my books. And not a lot of ponies in the north know I’m actually a real pony.”
“Well, layponies, perhaps, yes. But in certain archeology circles- -”
“I take it you’re an archeologist, then?”
“Well, yes, indeed I am- -”
“Then we’re done here, aren’t we?” Daring Do began to stand up. “I’m not looking for an apprentice or a sidekick. I tried that once. It didn’t work. I don’t care who you are, you’re not- -”
“Oh, no no no, you’ve misunderstood me! Forgive me, I was not clear! Heavens no, I would scarcely be able to picture myself doing the kind of work you are known for.”
Daring Do frowned. “That was meant as an insult, wasn’t it?”
“Of course not! I myself am just terribly adverse to danger! Which is why I’ve come to find you! I have some information that you may find interesting. It’s imperative to my research, but alas I don’t believe I will be able to complete it. It concerns a certain rare artifact.” He pointed to the pile of papers around him. “I have documentation, if you’d like to see it.”
Daring Do looked at the papers for a long moment. Then she sighed. “Fine,” she said. “But not up here. That table, over there.” She set down her drink on the bar and pointed to a booth in the rear corner of the front room of the inn. “Let’s sit down and talk to this.”
The stallion stood up, beaming as he gathered his documents and papers before following Daring Do across the inn. With them both standing, he realized that she was much smaller than he had expected, and that, despite appearing young, she walked with a limp characteristic of extensive arthritis in her left rear leg.
“I’m not putting on a show for your sake,” she said, immediately causing the stallion to look away.
“My apologies.”
“Celestia’s horn…you know I’m twice your age at least?”
The stallion nodded, but did not bother to correct her or note the fact that unicorns and Pegasi aged at different rates, or reference the fact that Starswirl the Bearded had already been well over seven centuries old when he had first set hoof in this very city thousands of years earlier.
Daring Do slid into the booth, and the stallion sat across from her. Daring Do crossed her front legs on the pitted wood of the table. “So,” she said. “Who exactly are you?”
“Me? Oh, heavens, I didn’t introduce myself! Please forgive me! My name is Dulcimer. I’m an archeologist with the Royal Archeology Institute.”
Daring Do stared at him. “If that were true, then we don’t have anything to talk about. But it isn’t true. Those Institute ponies would rather get thrown into a pool of pony-eating leeches before even looking at me. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen. Apparently I’m a ‘rank amateur’ with ‘destructive’ and ‘uncouth’ methods. Despite having retrieved ten times the artifacts all of them have put together.” Her eyes flashed. “For future reference? I don’t like being lied to.”
“Ah, yes,” said Dulcimer, visibly sweating and not from the heat. “Well, I may have bent the truth, if only slightly. I WAS in the Institute. Until they…well…threw me out.”
“Any particular reason why?”
“Budget cuts, largely. And the fact that my area of interest…well, it’s not terribly fruitful. Publish or perish, as they say.”
“And that area of interest is...?”
Dulcimer looked around the room suspiciously, and then leaned forward. “Ms. Do, have you ever heard the term Exmoor?”
“Exmoor?” Daring Do was somewhat taken aback but did not show it. “Of course I have. It’s a well-known fact that the Exmoori are a myth.”
“I assure you,” said Dulcimer, appearing somewhat offended. “They are most certainly not.”
“I know. But that’s not what common knowledge says, is it?”
Dulcimer sighed. “No,” he said. “Unfortunately not. The Exmoori, as I’m sure you are aware, left behind precious little artifacts. And even then, much of what remains is elusive. All we have are pointless scraps of metal, or the occasional fragment of bone or pottery.”
“Which isn’t unreasonable. From what I’ve heard, they were barbarians. Not much different from the way yaks are now. Who knows? Maybe ‘Exmoor’ was just an archaic reference to YakYakistan. For all we know, they could be the same people.”
“No. No they are not,” snapped Dulcimer before catching himself. “My apologies,” he said. “But you are beginning to sound awfully similar to a great many of my superiors throughout my life. All the evidence we have does point to what you are saying. That they were a simple northern tribe that existed in the pre-Celestial era.”
“But you don’t think that’s true, do you?”
“I know it isn’t true. And I am to prove it.”
Dulcimer untied his binder and opened his notes. He removed a large manila packet and passed it to Daring Do. Daring Do looked at it, and then at Dulcimer’s urgings opened it. She then proceeded to pour out a number of faded pages with penciled images on them.
“Rubbings,” she said, immediately recognizing what they were. “Of a bas relief.”
“Indeed,” said Dulcimer, smiling. “Do you know from where?”
“No,” said Daring Do. “I don’t recognize the language. And that’s rare for me…”
“According to the records accompanying these, they were taken from a rocky outcropping that served as a redout for the Mighty Helm.”
“These are definitely not Helm carvings,” said Daring Do, shaking her head. “They never made anything like this. None of the motifs match, and the complexity…”
“Because they are not Helm. Not originally. There is some level of decadence, a loss of resolution, as you can see, but that is only because the Helm lacked the tools and techniques of the ponies who they copied this relief from.”
Daring Do looked up at him. “You’re saying they copied this. From something Exmoori?”
Dulcimer smiled broadly. “That is exactly what I’m saying, Ms. Do.”
Daring Do looked back down at the pages, flipping through them and taking note of the fact that all the ones present had ripped edges, as though they had been torn out of a book or binder. “That’s a big assumption.”
“It’s not an assumption, Ms. Do. I have spent my life studying this. I believe that the Exmoori were an extremely advanced Hyperborean race, one that could rival- -and DID rival- -ancient unicorns.”
“So you’re saying they were magical. I don’t know…”
“That’s not it at all! No, they weren’t magical. At least not any more magical than modern non-unicorns, I suppose. But they were a warrior culture dedicated equally to combat and scientific endeavor.” Excited, Dulcimer leaned forward. “Imagine, a world powered by machines instead of magic! Where the Hyperborean landscape could be rendered habitable at their will, or that could forge all manner of strange metals and weapons- -or even reach to the stars themselves! A grand civilization unlike any Equestria has seen before, or will maybe even ever see again!”
“One that somehow left no artifacts?”
Dulcimer frowned. “Where they once existed has since been fully subsumed by ice, or looted in the intervening millennia. The original to this work likely no longer exists. Even the Helm version is lost. And this is the only copy of the rubbing ever made.”
Daring Do looked up. “You mean you didn’t have the foresight to make a copy?”
“Me? Oh no, Ms. Do, you misunderstand. I was most certainly not the one who made the rubbing. These pages were created well over seventy years ago.”
“I find it hard to believe that we had a piece of Exmoori text buried in some basement for seventy years.”
“And yet it was. These were in fact labeled as top-secret until only recently, during Princess Twilight’s overall of the Canterlot Library. Some things were moved…misplaced…”
“And you ended up with this?”
Dulcimer nodded. “I did. But the more I interpret it, the more I realize that it is beyond me.”
“You mean you can’t understand it.”
“Not completely. No one can. Even after a lifetime- -a unicorn lifetime, mind you- -of research, I still barely know anything about the Exmoori. Of course, with the overall, more primary and secondary texts will become available, but with my rejection from the Institute I just don’t have access anymore…”
“You want me to do bookwork for you? You do know who I am, right?”
“Of course I do. And that’s not what I meant. You misunderstand. These texts, they reference something. Something extremely powerful and extremely dangerous. Something that the Exmoori…built, perhaps? I don’t know. My skillset is too narrow.”
“And you want me to recover this artifact. So you can prove the Exmoori were real.”
“And because whatever this is, I have the impression that should it be released it would cause serious and irreparable harm to Equestria as a whole.” He had suddenly grown quite serious. “I’m not entirely selfish. Perhaps this is just a parable, as story. A story that the Mighty Helm took enough interest in to bother re-carving with incredible accuracy into a granite fresco the size of this room.”
Daring Do looked down at the rubbings, flipping through them slowly and reading through the sparse notes that Dulcimer had given her. To her, it was apparent why he had failed to publish: he was not very good. His translations were shoddy and his work of dreadful quality. It was acceptable for the Institute, of course- -but not for one versed in practical archeology.
“There’s not much here,” she admitted. “Not much to go on. But the rubbing is perfect. But…is it missing something?”
“Getting it was…difficult. I may have only managed to get some of it.”
Daring Do sighed. “Of course you did,” she muttered. “This can never be easy, can it?”
While she continued to scrutinize the papers before her, Daring Do was distantly aware of the door to the inn swinging open. From the angle she was sitting, she could not see the individual who had entered, but she could see the expression on Mrs. Trotsworth’s face. Daring Do was not sure if her characteristic frown was purely instinctive or a conscious application of judgement, but she knew what it meant.
“Horn ivory,” she swore.
“Excuse me?” asked Dulcimer, confused.
“Nothing,” said Daring Do. “It’s nothing.”
Except that it was. She carefully watched the area around her. Little seemed to change; the card-players had started arguing over something again, and the war-story griffon had gotten off topic. The tourist on the couch had rolled over and was using his newspaper as a blanket while he slept soundly, smiling as he did so. Yet, somehow, the hot air of the inn seemed to have become thicker and even more oppressive.
A figure came into view. He was enormous, but his exact shape was obscured by a dusty brown cloak. A hood covered his face, and the torn hem of the cloak dragged on the floor behind him. This appearance was not entirely unusual; it was generally relegated to desert wanderers, either from the herding tribes or of lone wanderers searching the dunes for scrap or signs of new oases.
Dulcimer had begun to babble about something inconsequential and probably wrong, and had- -like the others- -not noticed the cloaked pony. Daring Do pretended to listen and shuffle through the documents as though she were focused entirely on them.
Then, to her dismay, the pony approached her booth. Dulcimer was oblivious until the moment when a long, dark shadow covered them both.
“Daring Do?” asked a voice from beneath the hood. It was incredibly deep, but also oddly tinny and distorted.
“Huh?” said Dulcimer, finally looking up. “Excuse me! I was in the midst of a conversation! I demand that you kindly await your turn!”
The hulking pony did not move. In fact, he seemed frozen. Then he spoke again.
“Daring Do?”
Daring Do sighed and put the files back in the folder she had been given. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s me.”
She immediately threw herself to the side, just barely avoiding a massive armored hoof as it landed on the table, instantly splintering the thick and solid oak into thousands of fragments. Daring Do tucked and rolled, spreading her wings to compensate for the sudden motion- -only to receive an armored hoof straight to the chest. This both unbalanced her both physically and mentally; the shock was not only to her ribcage, but to her fundamental assumption that she, as an unburdened Pegasus, would be far faster than any type of pony dressed in full armor, especially after having marched through the desert.
Daring Do was thrown back. She landed hard and skidded into an upholstered couch. The cloaked pony turned without any hesitation and began to approach her, only for Dulcimer to stand in its path and interpose himself between them.
“I will not allow you to hurt her!” he cried, his voice shaking despite the apparent show of gallantry. He summoned a shield spell, but even at a distance Daring Do could tell that he was no mage. The spell was unbalanced and poorly constructed. The armored pony lifted his hoof and struck the center of the orange-colored shield. It detonated with substantial force, simultaneously throwing Dulcimer backward and rendering him partially unconscious from the uncontrolled feedback to his horn.
The explosion also blew back the armored pony’s cloak. He did not seem to care, or perhaps did not notice. Daring Do stared up at him as he immediately began moving forward. Time seemed to slow as she took account of what he was wearing: a full-body suit of gleaming steel, far wider and thicker than it should have needed to be, complete with a helmet with six luminescent optical lenses imbedded in the front. His shoulder was marked with an insignia: a white thistle over a red field.
By this time, the other patrons of the inn had realized that it was time for them to step in. They had realized that Daring Do, one of their primary and favorite card players, was in danger, and they drew whatever weapons they had and leapt onto the armored pony.
Their presence did not even slow him. With a barely audible mechanical whirr, he lifted one of his arms and struck a heavyset earth pony in the chest. He was knocked back several feet, and the armored pony then proceeded to strike him again, this time sending him flying across the room and through wall almost twenty feet away. Within seconds he had incapacitated the others as well, doing so without any apparent effort. The whole time, he had not taken his optic lenses off of Daring Do- -nor had he stopped approaching her.
“FOR GRIFFONSTONE!” cried a voice from across the room. Daring Do turned to see the elderly griffon charging forward madly with a blunt spear that he had quite clearly taken off the wall, not realizing that it was only meant as a decoration.
The armored pony responded. He extended one hoof, and the metal around the limb shifted. A long blade extended from the armor, and he turned, wielding it like a sword.
Daring Do sprang into action. Having regained her wind, the leapt over the shoulder of the armored pony and tackled the griffon to the floor just in time to avoid a swipe of steel that severed the lower third of her tail hair, as well as separating the top of several nearby couches. One landed near the sleeping tourist, and he began to hug it as he rolled over and continued to sleep.
The blade came down again, this time targeted directly at Daring Do. She rolled and it imbedded itself into the wooden floor. This would normally have been fortuitous; Daring Do had more than once managed to trick a foe into imbedding his sword into wood, giving her a moment to counterattack. This was not one of those times, though. The armored pony lifted the sword free as though it was made of warm butter. Daring Do was not sure if his armor was enchanted or somehow mechanical in nature, but it was quite clearly enhancing his speed and strength substantially.
As Daring Do was backed against the bar, she saw Mrs. Trotsworth poke her head out from behind the bar.
“Get out of my inn!” she screamed. “And PAY FOR THIS MESS!”
With that, she lifted a crossbow from under the bar and loosed a bold directly into the armored pony’s chest. It rebounded off his armor with barely a clang. This actually gave him pause, and he turned his attention toward Trotsworth.
“My mission is the of the utmost importance,” he said, his voice still exceedingly deep and distorted strangely. “Do not attempt to interfere. Daring Do must be eliminated for the sake of the future of Equestria.”
Trotsworth replied by loosing another bolt. Once again, it did nothing, and the armored pony raised his hoof. The metal shifted, and Daring Do was sure she saw the tips of projectiles inside the mechanism.
She responded by reaching over the bar and grabbing her glass of courant juice. With the armored pony turned toward Trotsworth, he had exposed one side of his face. Daring Do lobbed the juice at him, and the glass shattered on his helmet, spraying thick, pulpy violet juice over one half of his optics.
The armored pony took a step back, clearly confused. He had been partially blinded, and with his entire body covered in metal, there was no way for him to wipe away the material blocking half his vision. Daring Do took advantage of this by picking up a chair leg and charging at him with it. The pony attacked again, but Daring Do parried obliquely, rebounding off his body and flipping over onto his back. As she did, she drew her whip and snapped it outward to grab a nearby table. Throwing her weight to one side, she formed a rudimentary pulley around the armored pony’s neck and pulled him to the side, simultaneously throwing him off balance and holding her too tightly to his body for him to buck off.
He was strong, though. Daring Do could feel his body straining beneath her. It was not the strain of muscles, though. She felt the click of actuators and the whirr or hydraulics, and could see the humming machinery through the joints of his armor. It was definitely a machine of some sort.
She was thrown off with ease. Before she was, though, she saw exactly what she had needed to see: a weakness. On the rear of the pony’s helmet, there were a pair of grate-covered tubes with isolating valves at a rate characteristic of somepony breathing.
Daring Do spread her wings and flew in an admittedly ungraceful arc to the rear of the bar, near the kitchen area. She landed next to Trotsworth, who was struggling to find yet another bolt.
“Mrs. Trotsworth!” cried Daring Do, grabbing a bowl of uncooked dough from the counter. “I need to borrow this!”
“But they’re not even cooked yet!” cried Trotsworth. Daring Do barely noticed; she had already dashed forward, once again charging headlong toward the armored pony. She approached from the side where she had stained his optics with juice; he saw her through it, but his view was distorted. He struck, but Daring Do was able to pull a high-speed dodge. The radius was tight, and as she once again swooped onto the back of the pony the strain on her wing became too much. Something inside cracked and slid out of place. The pain was intense and even blinding, but Daring Do did her best to ignore it.
She grasped the pony and reached her hoof into the dough. Before he threw her off again, she slammed the sticky substance into the tubes on the rear of his helmet. That was all she had time for; the next thing she knew, she was on the floor, lying in a pile of rubble.
The armored pony groaned and approached her- -but then stopped. For a second, even through his mask, Daring Do could sense his panic. Immediately, he reached for the tubes on the rear of his helmet, crying out as he tried to grasp the dough to pull it free. With hooves, though, he was not able to; all he succeeded in doing was pushing it in deeper, further clogging the tubes.
Daring Do stood. She grasped her wing and gritted her teeth and with one quick motion relocated the arthritic joint. She screamed from the pain, but her wing immediately regained its shape. Trying to continue ignoring the pain, she took a defensive stance, waiting as the armored pony writhed and clawed at the sticky dough.
“Come on,” whispered Daring Do. “Come on, take off the helmet!”
Whether or not she would be able to win this fight now came down to chance. In the armor, this pony was virtually invulnerable; but with even one piece removed, she would have one shot at taking him out. If he had been a unicorn, it would be easiest: a single, rapid punch to the base of his horn could render him completely unconscious. It was obvious that he had no horn, though, so Daring Do was given a fifty-fifty chance of him being a Pegasus or an earth-pony. A Pegasus would be a tough shot, but she knew from experience that her race had relatively weak skulls. One blow meant a concussion that, although medically significant, could probably knock him out. Probably. If he was an earth-pony, though, she had no chance. Their skulls were far too thick and strong.
The armored pony dropped to his knees, audibly gasping. Daring Do’s eyes widened as she realized what was happening.
“No. No, you idiot! Take off the helmet!”
The armored pony’s gasps began to slow. He looked up at her defiantly and tried to stand one last time. Finding himself unable to do so, he collapsed sideways.
A teal hoof suddenly struck him in the back of the head. “Ha!” cried Dulcimer. “Take that, foul ruffian! We’ve won!”
“Quick!” cried Daring Do. “We have to get his helmet off!”
“Off? Are you mad?! If we remove it- -”
“He can’t breathe! I clogged his air intake! He’ll suffocate!”
Dulcimer seemed oddly unconcerned, but Daring Do leapt down on the armored pony, trying to find the release for his helmet. She began to panic as she realized there might not be one, realizing what she might just have done to another pony and the line she could have crossed so easily. Just as she began to give up, though, she found a small release. She pulled at it desperately, and the explosive bolts in the helmet activated, sending it flying across the room.
The pony inside was not nearly as large as the armor made him seem. He was certainly well-built, but hardly a giant; in fact, from the look of him, he was probably a Pegasus. He was pure white in color, with a short-cropped white mane. Daring Do leaned down close to him, and the whole room fell silent as she listened.
“Yes,” she said after a moment, relieved. “He’s still breathing. But he needs a doctor.” She put her hoof on the side of his neck to check his pulse, and found that it was surprisingly fast and uneven. She also checked one of his eyes, but recoiled in horror as she forced it open. His eyes were deep red. Part of it was that they were bloodshot from oxygen deprivation, but it was immediately clear that his irises were already scarlet in color. He was a pure, red-eyed albino Pegasus.
Trotsworth looked out at her inn in dismay, but she knew what was more important. She immediately raced to the back room, trying to find her husband or someone that she could send to Somnambula to fetch a doctor, both for the armored pony and for the heavily bruised and defeated ponies he had severely beaten on his way to Daring Do.
Daring Do stood up and looked at the carnage. Several hurt ponies groaned, and the sleeping stallion sat up, looked around, and went back to sleep.
“Darn it,” she said. “I’m going to have to pay for all of this.”
“Not if you sell his armor,” noted Dulcimer. Then, in response to the look Daring Do gave him: “what? That’s your people’s tradition, isn’t it? That the gear goes to the victor of a duel.”
“It’s not that simple.” Daring Do put her hoof to her face and sighed. “Fine. Yes.”
“So you will take his armor?”
“No. Yes, I will look into this artifact. Because it’s pretty clear that somepony doesn’t want me to. And that has me interested. And very, very angry.” She reached out and plucked the folder of rubbings from Dulcimer. The rest she left; it was pointless anyway.
“I need more information, though,” she said.
“I’ve done all I can. I mean, I will certainly try to check for some sources I haven’t seen yet in a few of the more obscure libraries, perhaps look at things from a new angle and all, but neither of us have Institute credentials. Whatever modicum of information on the Exmoori they might have, we lack access to it.”
“Don’t worry,” said Daring Do, making her way toward the door and not looking back. “You go do your thing, and I’ll do mine. I need to buy a train ticket.”
“A train? Why?”
“Because I think I know somepony who can help.”