//------------------------------// // Chapter 19: The Thief // Story: Daring Do and the Iron Pyramid // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// Metal clattered to the ground, interrupting the utter silence of the tomb. Caballeron nearly jumped out of his ascot, turning suddenly to face an extremely embarrassed-looking griffon hen, her bag of scrap and artifacts having torn open. “Would you PLEASE be careful? Artifacts are distinctly more valuable undamaged!” “It’s just scrap--” “And you’re the only one here with fingers, no? The one for whom holding onto things should be trivial?” Caballeron picked up one of the shattered pieces of dark iron the floor, one of the several pieces that had once made up the now-destroyed door of the central burial chamber. “This is an indestructible alloy, worth a hundred times its weight in gold!” A scrawny, largely toothless Pegasus poked his head from around the corner of the hall. “If it’s indestructible, why’re we worried about breaking it?” “Are you questioning me?!” snapped Caballeron. “Don’t forget who’s paying you!” “Not you,” said an earth-pony mercenary with a very short tail, who may or may not have had a significant amount of donkey ancestry. “Except on credit. Now that we know where this place is...if you maybe--” “Had an unfortunate accident? Fell down a hole, perhaps? And I suppose mercenaries like you have the contacts necessary to fence five-thousand-year-old pieces of metal?” The mulish fellow glowered, but sighed. “And what, exactly, are we supposed to be looking for? I figured a tomb would be full of gold chairs and piles of gilded carrots or something...” “Chairs? Carrots? Is that what you think is in tombs?” “Well...aside from, you know, the bodies?” “The body, in this case, is the very reason we need to make haste!" Caballeron glared at him. "This is quite literally my job! I am the expert here, not you! Anything you can pick up, anything at all we can sell it! We don’t have time to be picky! I do not want to be here when the owner gets back.” “He means the unicorn that cut off your tail,” said the griffon. “No,” snapped Caballeron. “I mean the unicorn that spent the last five millennia sitting here, drawing power, preparing to reestablish dark dominion on this world. Unless maybe you wish to try to fight him?” The mercenaries said very little. They were inadequate in every way possible, but they were the only muscle Caballeron had access to. He supposed one day he would be able to hire real mercenaries for henchponies, as his curved-horned former employer had. He simply needed to accumulate enough funds first. Caballeron led them to the main burial chamber. Although he entered it without hesitation, the others stopped at the door, the griffon holding out her torch. The room remained unchanged since Caballeron had last left it. The massive spell-inscribed blocks were still split, with piles of dry bones at their base, save for one that now stood empty. Caballeron passed by the revenite, now depleted, knowing that it was probably still the most valuable thing in the room. He did not have the time to extract it now, though. Instead, he made his way to the far side of the room, where the spells inscribed on the floor condensed around one of two much smaller, winged skeletons. “This...this place is bad,” said the griffon. “It’s a burial chamber,” snapped Caballeron. “It is not like they are going to get up and attack you.” “Um...” “Just do your job and collect artifacts!” “But...there aren’t any...” Caballeron turned around and pointed at the collapsed mummies. “Right there! Do I need to spell it out for you? Take the bones!” The ponies and griffon stared at him, horrified. “But...but those are ponies...” “They WERE ponies. Now they are PRODUCT. Each one of those is worth at least half a million bits! Try to get a complete set unless you’re too incompetent for even that.” Caballeron himself kicked aside one of the useless, non-valuable skeletons sitting next to a was-staff. He looked at the ground, quickly translating the spells and parameters set at the base. Spells written in a language that, until recently, he had been totally unable to decipher. He adjusted the circular mechanical aspects below the staff connection, finding that they moved with surprising ease despite their age. As it assumed the right conformation, the clasp holding the staff released and he was able to remove it with his teeth. As he did, though, he heard a different mechanical sound. A sound that was curiously reminiscent of flintlock mechanisms being cocked. He turned slowly to find his henchponies with their hooves in the air, at the mercy of a much larger group of heavily armed griffons. And, at the head of the griffon forces, a familiar Pegasus pony. A pony now staring at Caballeron with an expression that made something in the pit of his stomach twist, and he had to look away. Although ponies, being a prey species, were quick to surrender, Caballeron’s griffon was not. She grasped her sword and charged the smallest of the enemy griffons with a cry—only to be thrown to the ground, disarmed, and wrestled into a secure hold by a griffon twice her age who was wearing a fez. “No, stop!” she cried, struggling but unable to break free as his body pinned her. “You’re—you’re aggravating my daddy issues! I’m going to—to—vrrrrrr….vrrrrrr….” Captain Gruff raised a nonexistent eyebrow. “Are you...purring?” “NO.” “Stop making it weird!” Daring Do ignored them, instead stepping toward Caballeron. “You’re...you’re looting...” “No. I am salvaging profit. And if you were smart, you would too, and then get as far from here as you can.” Daring Do looked up at him, that horrible expression still on her face. Caballeron did not know why it made him hurt inside, but he knew that growing beyond that particular weakness would not be especially difficult. This time, he managed to meet her eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?” “How...how could you?” “How could I? Where you seriously naive enough to think that I spend this much time sweaty and getting covered in ancient grime and filth for the sake of enjoyment? The whole point of archaeology is profit.” He held up the ancient staff he was holding. “Down here, these are just useless trash, gathering dust and forgotten. But I can turn that into pure, clean wealth.” “But—it’s wrong! It’s stealing--” “Why? Where do you think this staff will go if I sell it? To some private collector’s shelf, or over his bathroom door? If you collected it, it goes to the same place, doesn’t it?” “But we have a museum, we take care of them--” “A private, expensive museum where every artifact is viewed only by its owner? Grow up, Daring, we’re after the same thing!” “We’re not--” “Yes, we are. And we can work together.” The expression on Daring Do’s face changed. “Together—you can’t be serious! I’m not a thief! I came back here because I have a plan to stop Seht. I think we can contain her--” “And why bother?” Daring Do gaped. “What?” “Why. Bother?” “Because if she gets back here, she can...well...” “You don’t even know. Here’s a hint. Dark pharaoh of an evil empire, perhaps?” “You don’t know that!” “I’ve read the Crystallic texts, and I know what she is. They are not kind. Our only option is to get out of here, and as fast as possible. You can come with me--” “For what? So she can take over Southern Equestria, so she can start a war with Celestia? Because if you’re right, that’s what will happen! If she starts an empire, it will spread, and you’re a fool if you think we can escape it!” “And by the time she gets that far we will have both passed to the next realm, old and, in my case, wealthy and happy for once in my miserable life. Whether or not you do the same is up to you.” “I can’t believe I ever...” Daring blushed, and seemed on the verge of tears. “Never mind. But you’re wrong. This isn’t about profit, or even the artifacts anymore. We woke something up here because we weren’t careful, because we didn’t listen—and it’s our responsibility to deal with that.” “To be honest,” said Gruff, “It’s really his fault, not ours.” “It may be our fault,” admitted Caballeron. “But is it really my problem?” “Yes,” said Daring Do, her expression moving beyond sadness and to one of resolve. “Because I’m tired of sitting here, doing nothing. I’m taking control now. And you don’t have a choice.” Daring Do walked to the other side of the room, activating the mechanism on the floor and removing the second was-staff. “The spell needs two ponies to activate it.” She pointed at the blocks that had protected the skeletons for so many centuries. “Those are the locks, and these are the keys. But they need somepony to turn them.” Caballeron became pale, looking at the skeletons. “That’s madness, you saw what the spell did to THEM...” “And I don’t care. You can read it, can’t you?” “No.” “Don’t lie. You saw inside her mind, her language. That’s why you’re holding that staff. You unlocked it. Which means you can read the spells.” “If you had not noticed, I am NOT a unicorn, and neither are you.” “You don’t need a horn for this kind of magic. The words will be enough. I think.” “You ‘think’? Daring, teenage bravado does NOT suit you, we can’t possibly--” “She’s on her way here. And you saw it in her mind too. The world she wants to build. I didn’t understand it at first, but I think that’s it. A world of darkness.” “We have no way to--” “You said it yourself! I don’t even care if she’s just coming home to take a nap, we can’t risk this and we’re the only ponies that can stop it!” “You cannot expect me to willingly attempt such a misbegotten, half-baked, absurd and ridiculous plan--” “Actually, I can.” Daring Do motioned to her griffons. “But I shouldn’t have to. It should be common decency.” “Never once in my life have I been indecent!” “Yeah, you say that while you’re looting a tomb. A tomb that I was looting too. And it was wrong, but if we had done this right, we could have kept Seht in there for another five thousand years. Geiger!” One of the griffons stepped forward. “Get to work on getting the rigging for those two stones.” She pointed at the ones that had contained Seht. “We need to get them out of here, damaging them as little as possible and we need to do it FAST.” “Based on the known density of basalt and factoring in iron inclusions, those each way several tons, more if they’re metric tons, slightly less if they're nautical tons--” “Can you do it?” “Well...yes, in theory, but it will be tight--” “Then do it.” “Have the tailless mule pull it,” said Gruff. “I am not a mule!” protested the mercenary. “Yes you are, and what in the name of Tartarus’s stank is wrong with you? Why is your tail so short, I can see your stupid pony rump, I don’t want to be looking at that, it's disgusting! Why are you standing there looking ugly?! Work! WORK!” The earth pony, terrified, immediately set to finding something to pull, dragging the scrawny Pegasus with him. “And you,” said Gruff, to the griffon hen, who he was still holding. “You’re a worse disgrace than your mother!” “You—you know my mother?” She gasped. “Daddy?” “I’m not your daddy, and I don’t know your mother, except that she laid whatever egg you hatched out of, so she must be terrible!” “We don’t come from eggs, we’re cats on the bottom--” “Stop bothering me with technicalities and pull something! And take off that stupid eye patch, it’s cooler without it! What are you, a pirate? A FLANK pirate?!” “No, I’m--” “Move, MOVE, MOVE if you even want to THINK about applying for my team--” “I didn’t—wait--is that a job offer?” “MOVE GRIFFON FLANK NOW!” The griffon hen immediately got to work doing something, coordinated with the others by Daring Do. Gruff himself, though, made his way to where Caballeron was standing--or rather trapped, by several griffons with large blunderbusses. “You gosh-darn horseson, breaking that little girl’s heart when her wings haven’t even lost her down yet!” “What did I do?!” Gruff flicked his nose. “Can’t say I don’t understand, I’m a griffon, so take some advice. Ponies always play nice. Generosity and kindness and all that disgusting diabetes.” He picked up a piece of dark iron from one of the spilled looting bags. “But unless you want to be scavenging hunks of old metal for the rest of your stupid, saccharine pony life? Don’t do things halfway. Have some respect for the craft.” Caballeron raised a thick eyebrow. “I don’t understand.” “It was like back in the War. Don’t burn a bridge if plan on switching sides. You might need it to escape.” “And if don’t end up existing at the end of it, when the mission is done?” Gruff shrugged. “What, if the world ends? Then where are you going to spend all that money anyway?” Caballeron groaned, and felt his flank suddenly struck with a staff. “Why are you standing there?” chastised Daring Do, “we need to record the text and practice the incantations! We’re only going to get one chance! Stop being lazy and MOVE!” She slapped him again. “Stop hitting me!” “Less talking, more education! Learn! LEARN!” Caballeron had no choice but to acquiesce, even if this was a terrible idea—but he had taken Gruff’s words to heart. There might still be a way to profit from this. If only he could figure out how to survive it.