Daring Do and the Tomb of Tirek
The air around Daring Do was musty and stale – almost suffocatingly so – but her soft, spluttery coughs were, to her, a special kind of victory whoop. She had solved every riddle, evaded every deathtrap and was now about to claim her reward – knowledge, for the benefit of all of Equestria.
She surveyed the markings carved around the walls of the small chamber. They contained a familiar message, one she'd seen carved all around the rest of the tomb. Her best translation was:
"On my mountain, I am ruler of all I see
For all that is mine lies under me."
To Daring, it seemed slightly ironic that Tirek had had his coffin placed in the lowest chamber of his tomb with that philosophy. The coffin in question lay in the middle of the room and was a plain grey slab of stone, and she approached it carefully.
"Well, here goes nothing," Daring said, taking a deep breath and pushing the stone lid up with her forehooves, straining and grunting as she did.
The stone lid clacked to the floor, and a cloud of dust rose from the coffin, momentarily obscuring Daring's view of "Equestria's Forgotten Scourge", the tyrant who had hunted and enslaved her ancient ancestors.
The dust dispersed. Tirek wasn't much to look at, all thin and swaddled up in bandages. Daring wasn't sure how old he'd been when he died, or how it had happened, but now she was that much closer to finding out.
A bracelet with a familiar phrase carved into it adorned his right wrist.
"Guess all that's yours now is a bunch of rocks," Daring said, snickering. "Let's get you out of – wha?"
There was a deep rumbling in the chamber, coming from the ground below. The stone lid shifted on the ground, and Daring had to crouch down to steady herself. Flakes of rock fell from the ceiling. The tomb was shaking, as if in an earthquake – but that couldn't have been possible! Daring knew that Tirek's tomb wasn't on or even near any fault lines.
The shaking worsened, and Daring felt her stomach lurch downward. She was going up. "All that is mine..."
Eyes wide, Daring stared into the coffin. She felt something rough enclose the end of her foreleg.
The voice was gruff. "...Lies under me."