Yearling and Creek climbed down the roots of one of the great trees and stepped onto the ancient cobbled path.
It didn’t seem to be any sort of city, for there were no buildings still standing. The area seemed to be a place of worship, or perhaps reverence. The ruins of statues and arches could be seen all around the pyramid throughout the entire complex. Seemingly, the lack of the jungle had exposed them to the elements.
Creek and Yearling walked over to one ruined statue in particular, the latter giving a shudder at the depiction.
It appeared to be of some pony-like creature, but it wasn’t a kirin, based on the lack of a floofy mane or other such floofy markings. It had wings, but only one remained, great and leathery like a dragon’s or a bat’s. The creature’s head was partially gone, but a lone curved horn jutted from the side of it instead of from the brow. The tail was similar to a kirin’s, though reduced to a small, round stub from weathering.
“What sort of creature is that?” Yearling asked. “Is that what the ancient kirin looked like?”
“No… I don’t think so,” Creek said slowly, pulling out some paper and making a sketch of the statue. “This may have been what the ancient kirin worshiped.”
“I’d hate to meet that in a dark alley,” Yearling huffed, before turning her attention back to the pyramid. “If the Kirinstone is anywhere, I bet my helmet it’s in that place.”
“If the Kirinstone is believed to be some sort of divine gift, and the ancient kirin worshiped… something in this place,” Creek reasoned, glancing up at the ruined statue as she put away her tools. “This would indeed be the place to look.”
They made their way across the decrepit plaza, stepping through the bushes towards the great pyramid that loomed before them. The sun cast its imposing shadow across the land.
When they reached the base, they found a set of steps on the side of the pyramid that, while chipped and cracked from age, were still solid enough to climb to the summit.
“What sort of stone is this?” Creek asked, leaning down to examine it. “I’ve never seen anything like it in the Peaks of Peril.”
“I’m no geologist, but I’d say it’s some sort of volcanic rock. Like basalt or obsidian,” Yearling said as she climbed. “Been to a few volcanoes before, and rock like this is all over the place.”
Creek nodded, frowning with thought as they hiked up the steps.
When they reached the top, they found an opening that led to a spiral staircase deep into the pyramid. Beside it was a mural of some sort, with some sort of writing scribbled on it. Creek squinted at it. “What’s this say?” she asked Yearling.
Yearling examined it briefly and her eyes widened. “It’s Pony Latin,” she remarked. “All the way out here.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it either. Can you translate it?” Creek asked.
Yearling nodded, running a hoof over the writing as she read it slowly. “’Only one soul may enter the Temple.’”
“Only one soul…” Creek said slowly.
“One pony, or kirin,” Yearling said with a huff. “I’m not willing to find out what happens if we both go, Creek. I’ll go. The Kirinstone is my mission.”
Creek seemed hesitant, but nodded. “Be careful in there, Daring. There’s no telling what the ancient kirin put in there… or if…”
“If what?” Yearling raised an eyebrow.
“Daring, what you said about the pyramid’s stone has me thinking. What if… what if the ancient kirin didn’t make this pyramid? What if whatever they are—like those statues—made this?” Creek asked.
Yearling swallowed. “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she said. “If the Kirinstone is in here, I’ll find it.”
Creek nodded. “Good luck, Daring Do.”
With a smirk, Yearling nodded, flapped her wings, and flew down the staircase.
Behind her, a stone lid rolled forward. Creek jumped in surprise and made a move for the sealing entrance, but stopped herself. She remembered what the sign had said, and like Yearling didn’t want to test it.
That didn’t stop her from squinting at the lid as it finally slid into place, walking over to it curiously.
“What is this symbol…”
With the shutting of the lid, Yearling found herself bathed in darkness. With a huff, she made for a flashlight in her saddlebags – only for the temple to beat her to it.
Torches flared to life on the walls, each one a flickering flame of blue-pink that Yearling recognized as nirikfire. The igniting torches outlined the walls and ended on the far side of the chamber Yearling found herself in. A stone door sat directly across from her, emblazoned with the symbol of an ornate fly.
However, before she could even take a step forward, innumerous glints of light caught her attention.
She was not alone in the chamber. Heaps of golden and bejeweled treasure lay scattered about the room, the light in the chamber seemingly growing brighter to highlight them. Everything from golden bits, to necklaces and rings, to even golden furniture were piled about the room. The only exception was a narrow, snaking vacancy that led to the far door.
“This seems… poorly laid out,” Yearling remarked to herself, glancing back up at the staircase and sealed entrance. “Why would you put treasure this close to the entrance and out in the open?”
As Yearling walked towards the path, she glanced over the piles of treasure. There was every chance the Kirinstone was a jewel of some kind, hence why it was so highly prized by the ancient kirin. It could be sitting here in the treasure just waiting to be found. And perhaps the rest could be sent to a museum.
But her gut smelled a rat.
It was too easy. Having been through innumerous pitfalls, she knew how the ancients thought. Sacred treasures were never out in the open, not without their traps or guards. The Kirinstone meant something to the ancient kirin, it wouldn’t be here. Which meant…
“They want me to take the treasure. That’s the trap in itself,” Yearling muttered.
Her attention turned from the treasure as she walked through the golden hills and towards the door on the far side. She was unsure what the fly symbol meant, but perhaps it marked the exit.
She stopped at a golden mirror next to the path and adjusted her pith helmet, smirking at her golden reflection before moving onto the door.
A quick examination showed no handle or divot that could be used to move the stone door. Yearling scanned the floor before it and found a stone tile slightly raised above the other. Gingerly pressing a hoof down on it, she winced, hoping it wasn’t a secondary trap.
The fly-symbol door rumbled and slowly lowered, revealing a dark hallway ahead. As she took her hoof off the pressure plate, another tile opened next to it. Inside was a small gap, holding a broken slab of stone, a few inches thick.
Yearling frowned, glancing back at the treasure room before picking it up. The surface was covered in some sort of scribbles, but they were in no language Yearling knew of. She did note the blood red coloration of the marks, and the fact that it was broken.
“Perhaps Creek will know what to make of it,” Yearling sighed, stowing away the broken slab into her saddlebags and heading down the hallway.
The hallway opened into another hallway that made Yearling pause. More nirikfire torches ignited along the walls to illuminate her way.
This new hallway was long, and had nooks along the walls of various rectangular sizes. Inside each was a mirror of some sort. Some were elegant floor mirrors, others were smaller, either to be set on a vanity or to be held in one’s hoof. The hallway seemed to split off in various directions.
“Alright… so what’s the trick to this room?” Yearling muttered, cautiously making her way down the new hallway.
A cursory glance into one of the mirrors explained it plain as day. Her reflection was nothing like her: it was dressed up in a beautiful evening gown with a well-pampered mane and tail.
Yearling paused, tilting her head in confusion. Her eyes slid up the length of her body until they met her reflection’s—and her reflection’s eyes promptly glowed green.
Yearling gave a startled yelp as her elegant reflection lunged out at her, eyes blazing emerald. She only managed to duck at the last second. The mirror image smacked into an opposite mirror before leering at her.
Scrambling to her hooves and running, Yearling glanced over her shoulder. Her mirror image was flying after her, a malevolent grin spread across her muzzle.
“Don’t look in the mirrors, don’t look in the mirrors,” Yearling quickly huffed to herself as she fled.
She turned down one adjacent hallway, only to find it a dead end – a giant, floor-length mirror at the end reflected her. Yearling met its eyes without thinking and quickly turned and fled, dodging a sweeping hoof from her elegant double – which was joined by one dressed as a pirate, complete with a cutlass.
Yearling turned down another branching hallway, saw that it ended with a mirror, and shut her eyes before she made the same mistake. She ducked at the sound of whooshing steel out of instinct, managing to keep her head, only for another hoof to punch her in the gut.
She continued her mad scramble away, grunting at the pain of her bruised midsection. Each branching hallway she turned to ended the same way – with a mirror. Some she managed to avoid the gaze of, some she wasn’t so lucky.
Half a dozen different Daring Dos, each with glaring emerald eyes and a malevolent grin chased after her down the main hallway.
“There’s no door… is it one of the mirrors?” she thought aloud to herself, her frantic brain going a mile a minute.
Her eyes swept across the mirrored walls, looking for something out of the ordinary. She had to duck and dodge blows from pursuing hooves and weapons as she went. A flick of white caught her eye and she skidded to a halt.
On a shelf-like protrusion sat an upright, simple hoofheld mirror, green in color save for the mirror’s glass. She willed herself to meet the reflection’s eyes as the sound of hoofsteps approached…
And found herself staring back at her.
Quickly reaching out with a hoof, Yearling grabbed the mirror. It pulled forward like a lever, but wouldn’t leave its place.
The hoofsteps abruptly stopped, replaced by the sound of splintering glass. Yearling glanced the way it had come from, only to find nothing in the hallways. Mirrors near her that she could see reflected nothing back at her.
The section of wall behind the mirror creaked outward like a door, and another panel of stone at the base of the new doorway slid back, revealing another broken slab of stone with crimson markings.
Yearling quickly picked it up, wincing at her sore stomach, before marching through the doorway resolutely.
Yearling finally entered the next room—and immediately paused.
It was the smallest, simplest room yet, with only a hoofful of nirikfire torches illuminating it. A few murals adorned the room around her, depicting the kirin. On the opposite end of the room was another stone door, this one adorned with the image of what looked like a pair of scales.
Next to the door was another little sign like there had been at the entrance to the temple. Yearling leaned in and squinted to read it.
“’Swallow your pride,’” she read slowly. She looked about the room, scowling in confusion. “There’s nothing to eat in here though.”
Another examination of the room showed that, indeed, she was alone. Save for the murals of the kirin.
Yearling squinted at all the murals. This was the first time she had seen the kirin depicted in the temple, and they were all posed in a similar way. At first she thought they might be pointing at something on the ceiling, but a glance upwards showed that it was bare.
She took a closer look at the kirin. They weren’t pointing, but their hooves were near their ears, but not on top of their ears to cover them. Yearling hummed and repeated the pose herself, her eyes widening.
“They’re listening for something, but what?” Yearling remarked, setting her hoof down. Her eyes fell to the sign and she rubbed her chin. “’Swallow your pride…’”
Yearling ran the words over in her brain. If you were prideful, what wouldn’t you do—or rather, what wouldn’t you say?
Her mind ran back over her misadventures with Rainbow Dash and her friends. She’d been rather prideful back then, so what had been so difficult for her to say?
The word left her lips as soon as it came to mind: “Help.”
She jumped as the door rumbled and slowly slid into the floor. The tile just in front of it slid back to reveal a third broken slab of rock. Yearling smirked and plucked it up, setting it with the others in her saddlebag.
“Well, that was easy,” she remarked as she stepped through the doorway.
As Yearling stepped through the next door way, she instantly reared back at the sound of party horns. She was surprised to see the large room filled with kirin, each wearing a party hat. Many were off to the side, chatting with one another and laughing, or playing some sort of party game.
“Welcome to the party, you made it!” one cheered.
“Have some cake!” another exclaimed.
“Uh… thank you?” Yearling stumbled into the room, guided by a few of the kirin as they took her on a tour of their party room.
The rational portion of her mind tried to remind her of her quest, but it was quickly overridden when the kirin introduced her to the buffet. It tried to speak up again, only to be drowned out by the many party games the kirin had.
It gave one last hurrah, only to be silenced when the kirin led her to the bouncy castle. Her jaw dropped. She hadn’t been in a bouncy castle since she was a little filly, and certainly they weren’t made for full-grown mares, but this one was!
With a giddy grin, she trotted towards the entrance. As she stepped onto the rubbery, inflated flooring, however, her rational mind made some headway.
What would all this be doing in the temple? Sure, it looked fun, and the food was probably good, but this was an ancient temple. And it hadn’t exactly been easy on the tricks thus far.
She was startled from her thoughts by an urging hoof. “C’mon! Don’t you want to play?” the kirin it belonged to asked.
“Well, actually—”
“But what about the food? You haven’t even tried it yet! Aren’t you hungry?” another insisted.
“That’s very kind of you to offer, but—”
“And there’s so many more games to try! And singing! And dancing” pleaded a third kirin.
Growling, Yearling shut her eyes and shouted to the high heavens: “NO!”
All at once, the sound in the room stopped, and Yearling opened her eyes.
The chamber was completely empty. Her hoof fell through air to touch the ground as even the bouncy castle was gone. Nirikfire torches illuminated the walls, along to a stone door on the opposite end of the room, marked by a trio of hearts.
Yearling huffed and marched over to the door, stepping on a raised pressure plate in front of it. The door slid shut, and another tile in the floor revealed another broken, crimson-marked slab.
“These are some weird traps,” Yearling muttered, looking back at the empty room, now quiet as a cemetery.
She adjusted her pith helmet and carried on into the next hallway.
Much like the previous trap room, Yearling didn’t get much of a warning before feathers hit the fan.
There was a rumbling noise overhead and some loose dust and pebbles fell around her. A glance up was all she needed, her wings flaring open and carrying her down the larger hallway.
With an earth-shaking crash, a large stone boulder filled the hallway and began barreling towards her.
Yearling noted either the stone slabs she had been finding were weighing her down, or the boulder was moving abnormally fast—because no matter how hard she pumped her wings, the giant rock seemed to be right on her tail.
The hallway curved and sloped, turning one way and ascending before descending and twisting another. Yearling felt her lungs burn as she struggled to keep ahead of the rock. She’d been in situations like this before, but never with a rock that wanted her dead this badly.
Finally, the end of the hallway appeared before her—along with a shut door, marked with a symbol that vaguely looked like a mug. Her quickly scanning eyes found no pressure plate to hit, and instead there was a horizontal wooden lever along the wall.
Yearling quickly smacked with a hoof as she flew past, doing a barrel roll in the process. A broken slab like the others fell in front of her and out of instinct, she grabbed it and held it to her chest.
The door slowly slid down just as Yearling approached it. Extending out three of her hooves and flattening herself out as much as she could, she just managed to fly through the widening gap and fall to the floor.
The boulder, much too large, smacked into the door. The impact rattled the temple and shifted down some more dust from the ceiling.
Yearling lay sprawled on the floor for a few minutes more as she struggled to catch her breath. She looked to the tablet in her hoof, illegible as the others, and frowned.
“You… better… be… worth it…” she wheezed.
Stuffing it with the others, she shakily got to her hooves and marched onward into the temple. She hoped there wasn’t too much farther to go.
The next room hit her nostrils before she could even see what it was, and by the time she walked through the doorway she was salivating.
The illuminated room was full of tables, and the tables were full of food and drink. Everything from double-cheese hayburgers to Chicacolt-style carrot dogs to the most luscious fruits and vegetables she had ever seen. There were cupcakes in seemingly every flavor, and towering tiered cakes fit for a royal wedding. There were fountains of sparkling water and kegs marked “root beer,” with plenty of drinkware to spare.
Normally, the room should’ve set off the alarms in her rational mind, like the first one did and the one before the boulder of imminent doom. But she’d been punched, she’d been chased by a giant boulder of impending doom, and she’d been walking for what felt like hours.
Yearling tiphooved over to the nearest table, her tongue lolling out as the smells teased her nostrils. She reached out and picked up one of the hayburgers and sniffed it. Her stomach growled in anticipation, and almost drowned out the alarm bells in her head.
Almost.
With some effort of self-control, she forced her hoof down and backed away from the table. What little willpower she had left was directed at the fact that, yet again, this was an ancient temple. An ancient temple that had tried to deceive and kill her multiple times.
And there was no way in Tartarus that all this food would still be fit to eat… if it was fit to eat to begin with.
Now eyeing the sustenance with wary eyes, she made her way towards the opposite end of the room. She had to stop herself a few times from picking up something to eat, and even from dipping a wooden goblet into one of the fountains.
She forced her head forward to find a door marked with the symbol of three open mouths. Yearling slammed a hoof onto the pressure plate, forcing her gaze away from the tempting treats.
The door slid down and revealed another broken tablet fragment beneath a sliding tile at her hooves. With a grunt, she picked it up and set it in her tightly-packed saddlebags.
“This better be over soon,” she muttered under her breath, forcing herself forward and leaving the banquet behind.
In the next room, she was met with a crash as a large mass of solid stone crashed down inches from her face, the impact making her lift off the ground briefly. At first she thought it was another boulder—until her eyes followed the stone up when she realized it didn’t stop growing in size.
The stone was actually a massive hoof, connected to a massive leg, and belonging to a giant stone golem with glowing blue-pink eyes. Based on the manestyle and the gnarled horn, Yearling surmised it was some sort of kirin golem.
She took to the air again as another hoof slammed to the ground, shaking the entire chamber.
At first, she tried going around the giant stone kirin, and found a door behind it. It was marked with a symbol that looked like, for some reason, a spiked collar. A quick glance of the ground showed no pressure plate, and there were no levers on the walls.
So that left the hundred-ton kirin in the room.
There was no way to fight this thing, even if she had an army of herself. She flew up towards the ceiling, dodging a swatting stone hoof. So that meant there had to be a way to shut it off.
Yearling risked getting closer to the giant kirin as its head turned to face her. Another hoof reached up to smack at her, which she easily rolled out of the way of. She was glad that whatever was powering this thing didn’t also have nirikfire for it to use.
The stone the golem was made of was a dark grey, so when a flicker of red caught her eye, Yearling sped towards it. The kirin golem gave one final attempted swipe before Yearling landed on its head, just behind the horn.
It was a red “x” of all things, and it seemed to be raised like a pressure plate. With both forehooves, she pressed down on it, and had to grab onto the golem’s ear as it suddenly halted, its head dipping forward slightly.
Yearling took flight again, surveying the golem. The fiery eyes were out, and it now seemed like nothing more than some grand statue. A faint rumbling was heard far below as the door lowered down into the floor.
Flapping down, she found another broken tablet waiting for her, and struggled to cram it in with all the others. She was beginning to struggle with the weight of all the fragments.
“Please let this be the last room,” Yearling huffed, marching through the doorway into what she hoped was nearly the end of the temple.
As soon as Yearling stepped into the room, she got the feeling she had reached the end.
Of the temple or of her, she wasn’t sure.
Unlike the previous rooms, this one had a set of stone stairs that led deeper into the chamber. It had a high ceiling, and the entire room was drenched in darkness, making it impossible to tell what awaited her.
As she set her hoof down on the first step, torches flared up along the wall. These weren’t in the shade of the pink-blue nirikfire, but a blood red that cast a sinister red glare over the room.
On the back wall was a huge mural. Yearling recognized the seven symbols that curved at the bottom of it: the ornate fly, the green hoofheld mirror, the pair of scales, the trio of hearts, the mug, the three open mouths, and the spiked collar. And above them sat a far larger, far more obscure symbol.
It started as an upside down triangle at the top with an “x” through it. The two lower ends of the “x” crossed through the angled lines of the triangle. Said angled lines met and made a diamond beneath the triangle. On either side of this diamond were two curls facing outward.
Given its size over the other symbols of the temple, Yearling figured it must be important.
Her gaze turned down towards where she was walking. At the base of the stairs was a large stone pedestal, and behind it a vacant altar. She subtly noted that the pedestal had a large, rectangular indent in it.
As soon as she set foot on the floor of the chamber, a loud, booming voice reverberated around her, causing her to freeze.
“Halt! Go no further.”
Yearling blinked, looking around the room for the source. “H-Hello?” she called.
“It is time for you to be judged. Place the offerings on the pedestal. Take what you know to know what you take.”
Yearling frowned at the idea of being “judged,” but stepped up to the pedestal. She already had an idea what the voice—whoever or whatever it was—wanted from her. She rummaged through her saddlebags and produced the seven broken slabs.
It took a great deal of trial and error to figure out where the slabs went in the slot, but eventually Yearling had it fully assembled before her. The crimson markings on all the pieces were still as illegible as ever.
There was a click from the front of the pedestal, and a small slot popped out. Inside was what looked like a monocle, the frame ornate and black and the lens tinted red. Yearling picked it up and looked through it. After examining the room, she focused it on the assembled tablet and gasped.
The lines and markings seemed to shift in her view through the monocle, so much so that she had to check outside its tinted gaze to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. This had to have been the most intricate ciphering spell she’d ever seen.
She gazed through the lens again and her eyes skimmed the tablet’s surface. Her eyes slowly widened as the story before her unfolded.
“Now!” The booming voice caught her attention, her head snapping up to watch the walls around her. “Step forward to the altar.”
Yearling swallowed, gently setting the monocle with the tablet and stepping around the pedestal. She walked up to the altar until she heard a click at her hooves and looked down. A pressure plate beneath her depressed.
“You who stand before the altar, do you know what it is you seek?”
Yearling swallowed again. “Yes, the Kirinstone.”
“Do you know the weight of what you ask?”
Yearling glanced back at the pedestal, and the tablet. “Yes I do.”
The temple remained silent. Yearling looked around the walls, half expecting some sort of swinging axe, or blow darts, or another boulder to come barreling down on her at any moment. The temple had tried to trick her thus far – what was this, its final security measure?
“Behold. The Kirinstone.”
Crimson flame swirled before her on the altar, radiating intense enough heat for Yearling to shield her face. When the flames subsided, Yearling cautiously peeked at what was left behind.
The rock was barely bigger than an apple. It was shaped almost like a little mountain, with the pointed peak rounded off. It was made of some unidentifiable reddish-pink stone that had round cracks running through it. Emblazoned on the front in gold was the large, triangular symbol that loomed over her.
“You are worthy to take it. Return it safely, for the price of failure is grave.”
Yearling nodded, though she wasn’t even sure if there was anyone to witness her. She hesitantly reached out and touched the stone and, despite the intense fire that had spirited it into existence, it was cool to the touch.
Gently, she picked the stone up and stopped. A quick glance at the altar showed there was no pressure trigger, and the continued stillness of the room hinted at no further objections.
Setting the stone in her saddlebags, she adjusted them to make sure they didn’t slip or come loose, and made her way back to the entrance. Seeing as there was no other way provided for her, she surmised she’d have to go the way she came.
She only hoped the boulder had been moved.
Yearling paused next to the pedestal, looking over the tablet and the lens. Glancing back at the altar, she gently picked up each piece of tablet and then the lens, stowing them away as well.
Creek Shine was going to love this.