Burly collapsed on the stone floor on the spot he had been standing, blood gushing from the bullet hole at an incredible rate. Daring tore her own adventuring shirt off and pressed it down over the wound to stop the bleeding, but it was no use. He was going to die.
“Daring...” he whispered, gasping for breath.
“Burly, why’d you have to go and do that?”
“The shot was... for you.... you don’t deserve to go like this. You have an adopted filly to care for. You have... ungh... a career. I have nothing. I’m a washed... ahh... treasure hunter.... It’s for the best that I go instead.”
“Burly, don’t die on me, alright? I can stop the bleeding....”
“Won’t do any good.... arteries... Daring listen,” he choked, “Thwart them. Do it for me. Don’t.... ack... don’t let them.... one last wish.... I want to be remembered .....for this. Tell them my story Daring. Please.”
“Oh Burly, No!”
“....good luck.”
His eyes stared off ahead of him blankly. Daring could feel the slowing beat of Burly’s heart beneath her bloodstained shirt. It beat slower, and slower, until it ceased entirely.
Burly was dead.
“Ohh look, you’re tearing up. Stay there and don’t move,” Broken Bank sneered.
He went back to reveling in the treasure as if nothing had happened. He began picking up pieces of gold and stuffing his pockets. Elise took his hat off and replaced it with a golden crown. Broken Bank grinned at that. He placed a necklace around her neck.
“Dr. Do....”
“Scootaround, get down and get out of the way.”
“They’re touching the treasure.”
“I know. Get out of the way, quick.”
Daring felt the groove in the floor, in front of the king’s coffin. She carefully unstrapped the staff from her bag strap, and took the pendant off from around her bare neck. The attachment’s groove fit onto the top of the staff, and the pendant locked into place as the staff’s top, glittered beautifully. Before Daring could make any use of this powerful rod, Broken Bank took notice.
“Hey, give me that, that looks like a scepter of some kind!”
The older stallion galloped over and snatched the new staff out from Daring’s hooves, grinning in his state of being covered in gold chains, and crowns. He felt kingly, and powerful. To display his power, he went and thrust the staff into the slot in front of the sarcophagus. He didn’t much like the height of it once it had slid into place, so he tried removing it.
It wouldn’t come out.
“What is this, did you glue it?” Broken Bank demanded, scratching his chin. Daring’s eyes were wide and she began walking back away from him slowly. The emerald at the center of the headpiece began glowing brilliantly, and a low humming filled the chamber.
“Ouch, these gold chains feel kind of warm,” the stallion murmured. He decided it was best if he took them off. He reached for the chain he wore around his neck, and tried to pull it off.
It wouldn’t come off.
“What’s happening?” he stammered. The heat of the gold he wore around his neck, around his skull, and in his pockets increased. He felt his coat beginning to singe and smoke from the ever-heating gold he wore. Behind him, Elsie screamed as the single necklace she wore around her neck began burning her.
“WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME?!” Broken Bank screamed mightily. Daring backed away even farther, and he glared at her. She had set him up! Whatever he had done with that staff had triggered this!
Broken Bank’s anger turned swiftly to agony as he let out one last choked yell. The crown around his head and the gold jewelry around his neck had gotten searing hot, to the point that he could feel the skin beneath his coat becoming charred and burned.
His hair burst into flames, staring at his neck and spreading up his face. His mouth twisted open in a terrified shriek, but he could make no sound for the skin and muscle of his throat was cooked. The hair burned away and the flesh beneath began bubbling and blackening, falling away in ragged chunks. The bony structures of the stallion’s skull covered in blackened chunks of muscle were all that remained of his face as boiling blood ran down onto the ground.
Both Broken Bank and Elise collapsed into heaps. Daring could not see the state of the mare at all. The fire surrounding the corpse of Broken Bank began to spread across the chamber.
Daring’s head was suddenly cleared. As soon as the staff had been thrust into the place in front of the sarcophagus a heavy weight on her soul had been lifted. Her mind reeled and she realized what was to happen
They had to get out of here, and fast.
“Scootaround!” she shouted over the roaring flames, “On my back!”
The filly did not need to be told a second time. She mounted Daring’s back behind the pony’s wings and they took to the air, just as flame erupted below them. What had previously been a tomb chamber filled with treasure was now a sea of unrelenting fire as the scattered gold burst into flame and spread to the floors.
Daring swerved as a plume of flame spouted near her, and ducked through the cubic entrance chamber and into the cylindrical room that held the spiraling staircase.
A thought sunk through her head as she realized that the fire would soon be here.
“Hold on, we need to go faster!” she shouted, and began a steep vertical incline through the center of the chamber, through the spiraling stairs around her. The fire reached the petroleum, and it accelerated the process with a gigantic, resounding explosion. Daring felt the warmth below her as a wall of fire sped up on her tail, expanded to engulf everything in the chamber. She rounded the corner aerially, swerving up through the snake pit and above.
Rapidly expanding flames licked at the sands of the pit before completely engulfing it. Daring sped onwards and upwards, out of the snake pit as the venomous adders were cooked alive. Out through the collapsing chamber and the crushed corpse of the agent, not even activating the now-reset trap as she had not even touched a floor tile. The temple around them rumbled as the explosion of the petroleum expanded even more. All of the bridge pieces had fallen away, but Daring flew past. Past the circular chamber that had housed the illusion of the giant snake, and out of the temple entirely.
Daring and Scootaround crashed into the bushes outside the temple, several meters from the very base. The pony looked up to see a raptor standing over her, snarling. It snapped at her and leaped into the air, but at that same moment the legs began turning to dust. The limbless form of the raptor flopped to the ground, twitching and snarling before it was entirely destroyed, and turned to smoke.
A pillar of fire erupted from the top of the temple stretched out before them, reaching up towards the heavens. Daring squinted and peered closely at the burning inferno, seeing the skeletal corpse of Broken Bank being swept up. She could see no sight of Elise’s corpse, nor that of any of the CAP agents.
The pillar of flame then did something totally unexpected. It had a definite end, and collected in a hovering blaze of fire that sat like a great cloud over the temple. The inferno lit everything alight as bright as day, and Daring could feel the heat emanating off of it. With a sudden crack the fireball dissipated, spreading out and disappearing from sight totally and completely. There was no trace that it was even there.
Daring and Scootaround sat together in the middle of the oasis, stunned. Daring wordlessly took to the air again, hovering over the top of the temple. To her astonishment, the flames that had erupted out of there had not scorched the place. Indeed, it was similar to the same condition they had found it it, as if they had never disturbed it.
She landed in front of Scootaround, and bent over to comfort the filly. Anypony would have been traumatized by the horrible sights they had just seen, and she was clearly terrified.
“It’s alright,” she said, “It’s all over now. We’re safe.”
“W...what was that?”
“That,” Daring explained, “was the power being released. A ancient dark magic to counteract the effects of Discord’s chaos. Or maybe it was Discord’s chaos. I don’t know. Whatever it was, it completed the curse. The curse of the lost tomb.”
“Dr. Do?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we go home now?”
“As a matter of fact,” Daring said with a grin, “We have work to do.”
She tightened her pith helmet down over her head and took the filly by the hoof. Together, the two began walking to the east, just as the rising sun began to creep up over the horizon and set the sky ablaze once more with it’s daylight.
EPILOGUE
Audacity tapped his hoof nervously as he sat outside the office of Dusty Shelves, curator at the Canterlot Museum of Equine History. He had just finished a rather intense and scrutinizing job interview.
He had been after the position of field assistant, hoping to get out of the library and out making a difference. His recent adventure had solidified his view, and despite his injury he felt that this was his calling. Now all that stood between him and this career was the outcome of the interview.
The doors opened, and Mr. Shelves came out first, shaking his hoof.
“We’ll call you within a week,” he said with a smile.
Audacity’s nervousness peaked upon hearing that. He’d let him know within a week? He had to wait several more days to find out if he had made the cut?
A few more ponies exited the room before Dr. Daring Do did, clad in a bowtie and a set of reading glasses. She shook Audacity’s hoof warmly.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this now,” she whispered, “but congratulations. Welcome to the team.”
Audacity felt his heart soar. He had made it after all!
“Don’t look so happy kid, or they’ll know I spoiled it!” whispered Daring with a wink.
“Tell you what, come with me and Scootaround. We’re headed to a baseball game. I’ve got lots to talk to you about.”
“Like what? I want to hear more about what happened. Did Broken Bank really die? What’s the news about that Coalition, are they disbanded? Who’s the leader? What about Elise, is she dead too? When are they gonna go and document the ruins? Oh, this changes everything we know about history doesn’t it? I find it exciting, are you excited because I’m exci-”
“Audacity, calm down, I can’t hear myself think!”
“Alright, alright,” he said sheepishly. He walked with Daring down the halls of the museum and towards the exit, before he thought of a question he had been meaning to ask her.
“Daring, where are you headed now? What’s your next field assignment?’
“There’s some talk about Starswirl the bearded and his relics. Just talk right now, we might find a lead.”
“What does that entail?”
“Another day, another dungeon,” Daring said with a grin, “That’s the life of an adventurer. Good luck out there kid, you’ll go far.”
