//------------------------------// // Case Eighteen, Chapter Seven: Uluru // Story: Ponyville Noire: Misty Streets of Equestria // by PonyJosiah13 //------------------------------// Daring frowned at the stones around her hooves, squinting through the rippling water.  “Anything?” she called out.  “No sign of it,” Phillip replied from a few yards to her left, his head turning from side to side as he searched through the pool. He frowned at the fresh bandages around his forelimbs, water dripping off the resistant material.  “Just see rocks,” Rolling Thunder called out from Daring’s right, where he and his wife were slowly making their way through the pool.  “Keep looking,” she replied, slowly moving through the pool to try to make as few ripples as possible. “It’s gotta be here somewhere.”  A splash to her left made her look up. Aqua was wandering through the banks of the pool, kicking aside rocks as his head turned from side to side. He ducked his head beneath the surface of the water like a duck and popped back up with a bright red stone with a yellow stripe running across the uneven surface.  “Is ish wahoo ughing fah?” he asked.  “No, but thanks anyway, kid,” Daring smiled.  Aqua spat the rock back into the rock and continued his search. “You don’t need to do this, kid,” Daring told him, smiling despite herself.  “I wanna help!” Aqua chirped, continuing his enthusiastic search. “You’re looking for something important, something that the bad guys wanted. If you find it, that’ll stop them, right?”  Daring found herself chuckling at the child’s enthusiasm and simple logic. “Well, sort of,” she admitted.  “Then I can help!” Aqua replied, returning to his search.  “So can we,” his mother declared as she and her husband climbed into the water themselves.  “No, you don’t--” Phillip started to protest.  “It’s the least we can do,” she waved them off. “Now, what are we looking for?”  “A stone with a wandjina painting on it,” Daring said.  “You mean those white things with no mouths?” Aqua asked. “They’re cool-looking!”  Creek and Thunder both chuckled. “Yes, they are, aren’t they?” Creek smiled.  They searched in relative silence for several long minutes, occasionally picking up an unusual stone for a closer examination but consistently finding themselves disappointed. It was only when the sun was well above the horizon that Aqua finally shouted, “I found it!”  He hoisted up a large round gray rock with a familiar white face painted upon it, just barely visible after years of being in the water.  Phillip trotted over and grasped the rock turning it over in his hooves. After a moment, there was a soft click and the two halves of the rock split apart. A small key, red with rust, tumbled into his hoof.  “Nice eyes, anklebiter,” Phillip smiled to the colt, tousling his mane.  “Yay!” Aqua cheered.  “Stay safe, kid,” Daring grinned at him, plucking one of her feathers and tucking it into his mane. “And stay close to your parents next time, all right?”  “Yes, ma’am!” Aqua chirped, giving her a brief hug as she trotted off.  “Now, off to Uluru!” Daring declared as Phil, Creek Fog, and Rolling Thunder followed her back to the camp to start packing up. “Which, according to the map, should just be…” She stared at the map, then paused, her eyes widening.  “Three full day’s walk from here,” Thunder chuckled.  Daring groaned. “Why couldn’t you three have been born with wings?”  As she started to roll up her sleeping bag, she heard something rattling beneath the cloth. With a grunt of confusion, she lifted the bag aside and stared at what lay beneath.  “Where did those come from?!” she cried aloud, staring at the .38 rounds that lay on the bottom of the tent.  Phillip poked his head in and blinked in bewilderment at the bullets, then lifted his own blanket. “Bulldust,” he muttered in disbelief at the sight of his own bullets on the floor.  “How did that happen?” Daring asked.  “Maybe whatever hex the…” Phillip hesitated for a moment, then spoke the word through a brief grunt. “Namorodo put on our ammo faded last night.”  “I hate magic,” Daring grumbled, repocketing her bullets. “I hate feeling helpless.”  “That’s why we have these,” Phillip stated, reloading his weapon. He snapped the cylinder shut with a click and made sure it spun freely. “Now, let’s get packed up. Long way to Uluru.”  The weather as they walked westward was thankfully pleasant, with a cool breeze flowing down from the north. No sandingoes harassed them, though they did see a wide variety of native fauna on their journey. As the sun set that night, they set up camp near a small stream. As she washed off her shirt in the slowly-flowing water that reflected the reds and purples of the sky, Daring watched a small cluster of kangaroo in the distance digging among the sand for morsels. One of them lifted up onto its hind legs, her mouse-like head turning towards the visitors in curiosity. A little joey popped its head out from its mother’s pouch, blinking in the waning sunlight.  “Aww,” Daring smiled at the sight.  “No, you can’t have one,” Phillip said with a smile as he filled up his canteen.  Daring stuck her tongue out at him. “Spoilsport.”  “They’d make poor pets,” Rolling Thunder chuckled from his spot next to them where he was washing his and his wife’s cloaks. “They don’t like being cooped up, and with those claws of theirs, they can disembowel ponies with a kick.”  “Cool!” Daring grinned, prompting Phil to sigh and shake his head.  As they continued washing, Daring glanced over at Phillip. "You have any idea on who stole the journal from Uncle Prom's safe?" she asked. Phillip frowned. "A few ideas," he admitted. "But we'll need to get back to finish investigating." He grimaced and shook his head. "Should've stayed there." "Yeah," Daring agreed as she wrung her shirt out. "But on the other hoof, that might've given Ingwa and Snake too much of a head start." She glanced around into the shadowy bush. "Wonder where they are now." "Out there somewhere," Phillip growled, screwing his canteen closed as he glared into the darkness. A few fish speared out of the river provided them all with a full meal and for a long time after, they simply sat around the campfire, admiring the twinkling stars above them.  “If you look up there, that’s an emu there,” Creek Fog said, pointing up to a cloud of dark nebulae across the center of the Milky Way.  “Where?” Daring asked.  “Her head is right next to the Southern Cross there,” Creek said, tracing out a particularly dark spot of cloud. “And then her body goes down towards Scorpio, do you see it?”  “Uh...yeah, I see it,” Daring nodded.  “She’s the wife of Daramulum,” Creek explained. “He’s a god of shamans who lives in the Moon, overlooking the weather.”  “How did you control the weather originally?” Daring asked. “I mean...are there pegasus Aborigineigh?”  Both their guides laughed heartily. “No, sadly,” Rolling said. “Before the Equestrians came with their pegasi and weather magic, we Aborigineigh had medicine ponies who used their magic to influence the weather.”  “It probably would’ve worked a little better if we could fly, yes,” Creek admitted. “Speaking of medicine ponies,” Rolling Thunder said, rising. “Let’s take a look at those wounds.”  Daring stretched her wing out and allowed Rolling and Phillip both to change her bandages and study her injury. “Oh, that’s healing well,” Phillip said approvingly, noting how more of the wound was closing to form a pale red scab.  “Bit faster than I expected,” Daring commented, stretching out her limb and smiling in relief as she found that she could stretch it almost completely out without any serious pain, the pain-relief charms in the thread holding.  “Maybe it’s just the outback air,” Creek shrugged.  Phil checked his forelegs, nodding as he found that his cuts were largely fading to red marks. “How’re the ribs?” Daring asked.  “Feel better,” Phillip said, touching his chest where he’d been struck. “Still a bit sore, but I think it’ll be healed by the time we get to Uluru.”  A howl in the distance made them all pause and look up, eyes sweeping over the dark shapes that surrounded them. Phil and Daring both glanced at the circle drawn into the sand around their campsite, both of their thoughts going to the faint tingling of magic that they could feel in either their feathers or the frogs of their hooves.  “It’s too far away,” Rolling Thunder assured them. “We’ll be fine.”  “You sure?” Daring asked, trying to banish the images flashing before her eyes of rotting flesh clinging to yellowed bones and hate-filled black eyes glaring at her.  “I’m positive,” Rolling Thunder smiled at her.  “So long as Ingwa and Snake stay away, too,” Phillip grunted, reaching for his .38 and strapping it to his foreleg, double-checking to make sure that all six chambers were loaded and the safety was on. He blinked heavily and attempted to suppress a yawn, with only partial success as Daring checked her weapon as well.  “You’d best get some sleep,” Rolling Thunder urged them. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.” “Don’t worry, we’ll stay up for a few hours to watch for trouble,” Creek Fog waved them off.   Phil and Daring both glanced at each other, then shrugged reluctantly and started to head to their tent, mumbling good night. Zipping the tent shut behind them, they stripped off their freshly laundered vests and hats but placed their pistols close to their sleeping bags.  “Is it me, or do a tent and a circle in the sand not feel like enough protection?” Daring asked as she climbed into her sleeping bag. “Give me some armor and solid walls any day." Phillip grunted in agreement as he laid down. From outside came the sound of Rolling Thunder and Creek Fog singing in their native tongue, the words slowly passing through the air like a warm blanket being draped over the air, comforting in their gentleness.  “We’ll be okay,” Phillip said, taking her hoof and squeezing it, smiling at her in the darkness of their tent.  Ordinarily, Daring would’ve just made some sarcastic comment or asked him how he could be so sure. But tonight, warm in her tent, listening to the Aborigineigh song in harmony with the soft rustle of the wind, she merely smiled softly back and nodded. Still holding hooves, they both closed their eyes.  When Daring and Phil opened their eyes again, they were once more laying on the dew-kissed grass beneath stars that swirled through the purple sky.  “Been a while, Your Highness,” Phillip said, looking up at the sound of hoofsteps from the forest around them.  “Forgive me; I have been busy with other matters,” Luna smiled down upon them as she trotted in from behind a tree. “How goes your journey, adventurers? Your parents have told me of your quest.”  “It’s just like a camping trip,” Daring replied. “Campfire songs, long hikes, and dangerous fauna that wants to kill you.”  Luna tilted her head to the side. “Oh? Is that what’s troubling you tonight?”  Phil and Daring both looked at each other, then sighed.  “We encountered a namorodo,” Phillip said. “An evil spirit from Aborigineigh mythology.”  “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, even when it was right in front of me,” Daring admitted.  Luna nodded gravely. “I see. Once again, you have faced a monster from legend, something that you didn’t think was supposed to exist.”  “That’s putting it lightly,” Daring nodded. She looked up at the swirling stars, peering into the purple void as if it held the answers to her questions.  “Luna…” she finally asked. “What's out there? What's really out there?" Luna cocked her head to the side for a moment, her expression pensive and full of quiet compassion, then sighed. “The truth is...complicated.”  She pushed her long blue mane out of her face and continued. “Celestia and I have both encountered many things that most creatures would rather not know of, things whose existence defies both proof and understanding: spirits, ghosts, demonic beasts, and yes, even beings that some would call gods,” she said. “Beings both so wondrous and so terrible that I sometimes marvel that my sister and I have retained our sanity." She smiled briefly. "If Celestia were here, I'd believe she'd have a remark about that." All three ponies chuckled. “So why don’t you tell ponies?” Phillip asked. “Ponies should know what’s out there. It’s in our nature to want to know.”  “Not all share your curiosity,” Luna replied with a wry smile. “Most creatures would rather that the world fit into whatever box that they have constructed for it. Many will straight up refuse to believe in anything that they have not seen with their own eyes. And others will react violently to anything that interferes with their views. Trust me, I speak from experience," she added bitterly. “We once attempted to spread the message of the wonders that we had seen, Celestia and I,” Luna continued, frowning. “We told Mother much the same as you: that our ponies deserved to know what was waiting for them on the other side of the veil, to be comforted, to have their questions answered. "But the more we spoke, the more we learned of our own ignorance," Luna admitted. "We thought that we had solved the secrets of the universe, but were proven wrong many times over. And though some listened to our messages, others responded with suspicion, skepticism, demanding proof we could not provide; some even responded with anger and hatred. And as our words passed from ear to ear, some misinterpreted what we said, either mistakenly or deliberately, and used them to encourage violence and hatred.”  “Typical,” Daring replied bitterly.  “I’ve since learned that there are some things that are best left to faith,” Luna continued. “Each of us has our own path in life. Each of us has their own view of the world, and new things that they are meant to discover.”  “Where have we heard that before?” Daring grumbled, looking up once more at the purple sky, trying to pierce through the void as if it were a curtain that she could pull aside and reveal, once and for all, what was on the other side.  Luna chuckled. “I thought you were an explorer who would enjoy the challenge of discovery,” she said.  Daring frowned for a moment, then sighed. “Okay, you got me there,” she admitted.  “I can assure you of one thing,” Luna told them, spreading her wings to embrace them both. “We cannot know with complete certainty what is out there...or even what awaits us after death,” she added in response to Phillip starting to speak. “But from what I have seen, there are great terrors out there...but also great wonders, and a great, genuine love, waiting for you to welcome it." She paused as she examined their frowns, then sighed. "I know you want more. I know you want proof. And I am sorry that I cannot provide that. All I can tell you is what I have seen, what I do believe, and ask for you to trust me." “Thank you, Princess,” Phillip sighed, lowering his head and trying to hide his disappointment at not finding any definitive answers.  “You are welcome,” Luna replied. She stood up and spread her wings, lifting off into the sky. “Now, I must take my leave. But fear not; I will not leave you alone.”  More figures emerged from the woods, all of them familiar to Phil and Daring’s eyes.  “Having fun out there?” Bobby grinned.  “Are you two eating enough?” Rain queried, mother concern creased across her face.  “You’re really looking for treasure?” Rainbow Dash asked Daring, her face alight with delight.  “Tell me about Captain Bushwhacker!” Twilight urged, bouncing in place. “I checked the library but there was only one book about her and it was a very basic biography and there wasn’t anything about the treasure, but there’s so much about Aushaylia that I want to know and--”  “Twilight, let them breathe,” Flash chuckled, laying a hoof on her shoulder.  “Can you go anywhere without getting into trouble?” Red asked, shaking his head with a smile.  Chuckling, Phillip and Daring both settled in for a long, pleasant dream.  On midmorning of the third day, Daring spotted their target: a red line just above the horizon directly to their west. “Uluru,” Rolling Thunder confirmed with a nod. “One of the shining gems of the Aborigineigh land.”  “It’s a lot closer than it looks,” Phillip assured her. “We’ll probably reach it by nightfall.”  “You said it was painted red with blood during a battle?” Daring asked as she pocketed her binoculars.  “You remember when I mentioned that during the Creation, the songlines woke up other beings?” Creek Fog said as they trotted across the scrub.  “Yeah,” Daring nodded.  “Some of those were monsters who declared themselves gods, who tried to get the ponies of this world to worship them,” Creek Fog continued, scowling as she spoke. “They tricked other ponies and made alliances with dark creatures such as the namorodo.”  Daring’s mind went back to the dark cave and she recalled the painting of the single-eyed flaming beast grinning down at the skeletal beasts. “The gods of the Aborigineigh--the wandjina, the rainbow serpent, the sky father, and many others--waged war upon the evil spirits,” Rolling Thunder continued. “Their fight was so great that it spilled out into our world, with blood raining upon the stones here. The good spirits were victorious and chased the false deities out of our land. Uluru was made into a mountain marked with the holy blood, as a place of worship for the Aborigineigh tribes, where the magic that kept the false gods away could be maintained.”  “It hasn’t always worked,” Creek admitted. “The enemy is clever and unrelenting, and they have always managed to find some cracks. But Uluru and its magic still stand.”  “Let’s hope the treasure still stands,” Phillip said as they pressed on.  “What do you think these keys even open?” Daring asked. “They didn’t put locks into the stone, did they?”  “I guess we’ll find out,” Creek Fog shrugged.  With brief pauses for rest and lunch, they finally reached Uluru that evening. For a moment, all four of them paused, gaping in awe at the massive red stone before them, colored by the dimming sun. Uluru stretched nearly three thousand feet towards the sky, its bulk almost three miles across from end to end. It seemed to be staring at them, as if judging if they were worthy to approach it.  “Thought there’d be more tourists,” Daring commented, looking around and seeing that they were the only ponies in sight.  “This land was declared sacred years ago,” Rolling Thunder explained. "Not many ponies actually come out here." “Which we prefer,” Creek Fog commented. “I don’t like the idea of this becoming just another tourist trap.”  “Me neither,” Phillip said.  “Nor me,” Daring agreed, staring up at the massive sacred stone as they approached, weaving through the trees that stood around the perimeter of Uluru like soldiers standing at post. The idea of being one of the only non-Aborigineigh allowed to see this beautiful awesome site sent a thrill up her spine and she stepped forward with a mixture of reverent trepidation and barely controlled excitement.  A low crackle of thunder caused them all to whirl around, spotting a wall of dark gray clouds heading their way from the east, lightning dancing amidst the sheets of rain pouring beneath them.  “Great,” Daring grumbled. “Couldn’t the wandjina have timed that better?”  “Let’s just try to find the treasure and get to shelter before that gets here,” Creek Fog urged them.  They reached the wall of Uluru, beholding the faded paintings of mythological scenes adorning the red stone.  “Okay, we’re looking for the rain,” Daring said. “No points for guessing who that is,” she mumbled, glancing back to the east.  They started to circle the perimeter of the stone, studying the paintings that stared back at them, all with inscrutable expressions on their faded faces. All the while, the rain clouds continued to approach them menacingly, the rumbles of thunder coming louder and louder by the moment as the light began to fade.  “Here,” Daring finally declared, pointing at a large painting of Awely-Awely, the lightning-crowned mare staring into the distance, one hoof extended. Peering more closely at the proffered limb, Daring saw a small crack in the stone. She took the rusty key out of her pocket and stared at it for a moment, extending a wing and brushing her primary feather over the metal. She felt the warm tingle of the magic embedded into the metal.  “Hmmm,” she mused and placed the key into the crack. As soon as the metal touched the stone, she felt the key grow warm and electricity danced across its surface as it glowed pale white-blue, causing her to instinctively draw away with a gasp.  Nothing else happened: the key simply sat in the stone crack, glowing faintly. For a moment, they all stood there in the light rain that was starting to fall from the graying sky.  “Okay, let’s find Angkakert,” Phillip declared. It turned out that he was only a few feet away from his wife, staring down at them in silent contemplation, the lightning crown around his head now just barely distinct from the red stone. He too was extending his hoof towards the viewers, and there was also a small crack in his hoof.  Phillip pulled his key out of his pocket and started to put it in, then suddenly stopped and whirled around, his ears flicking from side to side.  “What is it?” Rolling Thunder asked as the others all began to scan the surrounding trees, bushes, and rocks, the foliage swaying in the growing wind that brought more and more rain with every moment.  “Thought I heard something,” Phillip growled, pulling out his binoculars and scanning the area as he drew his Filly Detective Special.  Putting in her night vision contacts, Daring squinted out into the shadows, the darkening landscape cast into a pale green. Something moved in the corner of her eye and she whirled around, raising her weapon, but it turned out to be a wallaby that stared at her in curiosity for a moment before hopping off into the distance.  “The key,” Phillip said, passing his key to Creek as he continued to scan the area. Creek placed the key into the crack. It too began to glow faintly blue in the god’s grasp.  A moment later, that same pale blue glow began to illuminate a crack in the stone, marking out the perimeter of a circular section of rock. The rock in the circle began to fade away like a mirage, revealing a wide tunnel into the interior of Uluru itself. "How did--?" Daring started to ask. "Some kind of illusion spell," Creek Fog explained. "Aherrk must have known a good shaman."   “Here, come on!” Rolling Thunder cried, already walking into the stone. Creek Fog disappeared into the tunnel after him.  “You go,” Phillip ordered Daring, still glaring around into the darkness.  Shooting one last glance into the bushes as the rain began to fall in earnest, Daring turned and stepped inside, grunting as she wriggled through the narrow tunnel. “Couldn’t have made the damn tunnel a little bigger?” Daring grumbled to herself as she climbed up a small incline.  Thankfully the tunnel was fairly short and only a moment later, Daring stepped around a corner and into a cave illuminated by Rolling Thunder and Creek Fog’s flashlights. What she saw made her jaw drop down to her knees.  The cave was filled with treasure that glowed in the beams of their flashlights: stacks of golden coins embossed with historical figures from centuries past, sea chests filled with pearls and precious stones, silver and gold bars, and sacred Aborigineigh art: bark paintings, didgeridoo, tribal masks and jewelry, and more. But what instantly drew Daring’s eyes were the old journals and books placed carefully upon natural stone shelves, prominently displayed for the eye to see.  Daring immediately went for the precious books, gently picking up one of them and carefully opening the cover to study the ancient hoofwriting on the yellow pages.  “This...” she breathed, a massive smile crossing her face. “These are Captain Bushwhacker’s notes on Aborigineigh culture.” She clutched the book to her chest and beamed at the others as Phillip entered, gaping in awe at the treasure within. “Pinch me, I’m dreaming!” Daring cried.  “Maybe later,” Phillip said, recovering from his awe to glance back at the door. “Didn’t see anything out there, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.”  “We’re gonna need some major help getting all of this out of here,” Daring said, looking around at the expanse of treasure. “Hey, what’s this?”  At the very back of the cave were a collection of small chests, their varnish long faded over time. They looked completely unremarkable amongst all the other chests bursting with precious coins and gems, save for one difference: these were the only chests that were locked, secured with chains and padlocks that were anomalously free of rust despite having spent a century in a dark, damp cave. Each chest was a different color: ruby red, diamond blue, emerald green, amber orange, shimmering blue-green, moonstone white, and more. Daring crouched down and pulled her lockpicks out of her purse’s secret pocket. She placed the disabling gem onto the padlock, then inserted a wrench and her smallest pick into the lock and started carefully feeling around.  “Ouch!” she cried out a moment later, jumping back as the picks suddenly grew red-hot in her grasp. The enchanted gem tumbled off the padlock and the picks fell out of the lock, the ends now melted to slag that dripped onto the stone.  “I don’t understand,” Daring said, staring at her ruined tools. “That gem should’ve disabled any protective enchantment.”  “Maybe that’s just a more powerful spell,” Rolling Thunder said. “You think that that’s where the waddy and the stockwhip are?”  “I’d guess so, too,” Daring nodded as she pulled a small folding prybar out of her vest. She inserted the hooked end into the chain and started tugging.  A moment later, the prybar snapped in half with a great crack that mixed with a clap of thunder from outside, lightning filtering through the tunnel briefly painting the cave walls white. Phillip turned and glared back out the tunnel entrance, his weapon half-raised.  Daring stared at the two halves of the tool in disbelief. “That’s dragon-forged steel!” she cried. “The only thing that can break that is…” She growled to herself. “Magic. Bet the whole box is enchanted. To be unbreakable.”  “A box that can’t be opened isn’t a very good box, is it?” Creek Fog mused.  “True,” she said, scanning the cave once more. “Hello.” She noticed a smaller box next to the locked chests. Inside was only a small piece of parchment and a key on it. Daring unrolled the parchment and read it aloud. "'The key will open each lock, but only one chest contains the true items. Our legends will show you the way.'" She examined the key next, a small, plain key that was, like the locks, anomalously free of rust. "Ugh," she grimaced when she noted the decoration on the circular head: a coiled, multicolored serpent. "Okay," Daring Do mused aloud, looking at each chest. "So which one is real?" The scent of charcoal suddenly assailed their nostrils, but they still had only a heartbeat to react before darkness descended upon the cave like a curtain dropping.  Phil and Daring shoved their guides to the ground as hoofsteps sounded from the tunnel behind them, but the figures that charged in went past them, shoving them aside like bowling pins. Rolling and Creek both yelped as unseen hooves seized them. A gun click echoed against the cave walls.  The darkness faded away a moment later to reveal that the Aborigineigh guides were laying on the floor, staring up in shock at Sand Snake and Ingwa Wep, both of whom were holding blades to their hostages’ throats. Sand Snake was holding his oversized pistol on Phillip and Daring, swiveling the massive barrel from one to the other.  “You’d better figure it out,” Ingwa Wep snarled to them. “Or we’re gonna add a little more blood to Uluru.”