//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 - Separation // Story: Daring Do and the Secret of the Fourth Wall // by Ultra-the-HedgeToaster //------------------------------// This chapter is available as a "synthesized" audio book. For this chapter, I went the extra-mile and added situation-appropriate background-music for the audio-book. I even took care to ensure correlation between musical climax and the specific moments in the story when something actually happens. Headphones are strongly suggested. > [click here] - RECOMMENDED, with situation-appropriate background-music > [click here] - no background music > [click here] - with ambient music loop > [overview of all chapters] Daring Do was not a very happy pony. The fact that one of the pegasus' wings was currently wrapped in bandages was not even on the forefront of her mind. After nearly getting beheaded by a trap gone rogue, she had just barely escaped a collapsing tunnel, the exit sealed shut right behind her – only to realize that Rainbow Dash was still on the other side. After making her way through the labyrinth and escaping several relatively harmless or ineffective – and decidedly less self-destructive – traps, Daring was getting exhausted. Oh, getting out of the labyrinth had been easy. What had taken her so long had been her attempt trying to find another way back in. She had spend hours trying to find another way that led back to the main corridor and a possibly injured rainbow-maned pegasus, exploring just about every possible path until it hit a dead end. As it turned out, the darn labyrinth didn't even connect to that particular corridor! Realizing this, she had painstakingly backtracked her steps all the way back to the side-path that had led her into the labyrinth initially, trying once again to lift the debris out of the way. As before, entry was denied. She had shoved. She had pulled. She had shouted. She had punched the rock. ...Not that the last one had helped, nor did it have any chance to do so. In fact, her right forelimb still hurt a bit. But it had relieved at least some of the stress. Disgruntled, in the end she was left with no other choice but to move on, left with nothing but to hope that the other mare had managed her own escape. She seemed capable enough, judging by how she had fared so far. “Oh, who am I kidding?” Daring thought to herself. Surprisingly enough, the cerulean pegasus had possibly saved her flank twice already! Twice! Once from drowning in quicksand, and the other time from a pair of spikes she had not noticed herself. Three times, even, if one counted Dash's warning that ended up saving her from a fatal razor blade to the head. It went against her ego to openly admit it, but credit where credit was due. And she had failed to return the favor. It was her fault. She should have kept an eye out for Rainbow Dash – and now her companion might be... No. Daring couldn't suppress a cold shiver running down the length of her body. She should not think of it like this. “Never give up hope,” and all that. She had not seen what had happened. Rainbow Dash's lack of response to her initial shouts might just mean that the cerulean pegasus had been unconscious at the time, and maybe then wandered out of ear-shot while Daring was trying to find another way in. Or maybe the wall of rock and debris that had cut off the tunnel simply had been to thick for sound to carry, or... or... any number of things, really. Maybe – maybe she was just fine. Daring Do certainly hoped so. On the back of her mind, Daring took note that thanks to the cave-in she'd have to figure out another route back to the surface later on. Not that this currently was all-too high on her list of priorities. In any case, Daring did not feel particularly chipper about the whole thing, seeking to distract herself with whatever secrets of the Mareicans would present itself to her. Problem was, there was barely anything there. It had been almost a day since she and Rainbow Dash... It had been almost a day since they had descended into the depths of what the Mareicans had decided would be the ideal place to worship their gods (or whatever they had done down here). Daring had been certain she had correctly solved every last riddle carved into the walls at each of the labyrinth's junctions, and by that reasoning, she should be on the right way – but doubt was ever-so slowly chipping away at her confidence. For the last two hours, she had just been following a single corridor, barren of carvings or traps. The only thing reassuring her that she wasn't entirely lost were the wooden torches attached to both sides of the tunnel in more or less regular intervals. The Mareicans wouldn't have wasted their time putting up torches everywhere if the tunnel didn't lead someplace important, now would they? Right? This certainly was one of the temples – or underground-cave-systems, for that matter – she had spend the most time in, and there was no telling how far it still was to the central chamber. Most temples just had a bunch of traps in them, and then they got to the point... instead of stretching on for miles with empty corridors that didn't contain anything. And why in all that was holy did the Mareicans have to build their holy place so deep underground? Daring gave a frustrated sigh. The path ahead of her seemed to go on forever, reaching far beyond what her measly oil-lamp could hope to illuminate. When, after all this time, Daring finally saw a dim shine in the distance, she at first believed it to be a trick of her eyes. However, turning off the oil-lamp for a brief moment confirmed that there was, indeed, a light at the end of the tunnel. Squinting ahead, Daring could make out a steady purple glow and the faint shimmer of a reflective surface, likely metal. A... lightsource, down here? That could only mean one thing. For just a brief moment, the sides of Daring's mouth twitched, displaying her trademark confident smirk. Finally, she would uncover the ancient secrets of the Mareicans. Exhaustion forgotten, the adventurer began trotting faster, and soon found herself galloping towards the light. She was so focused on making out the details on the distant glow that she almost didn't notice the stark irregularity in the stone-wall to her right. Screeching to a halt, the promising glow still a good distance ahead, she turned and inspected the gaping hole in the wall, leading straight into what unmistakably was a small chamber carved from stone. The hole itself was on chest-level and zig-zag shaped, making it obvious not to be the intended entrance. With a last glance over to the light ahead indicating the most obvious path to take, Daring decided to take a small detour, and jumped through the hole. As she had learned from experience, sometimes you could make the most interesting discoveries if you chose the path nopony expected you to take. The first thing she noticed about the room was the air. Naturally, everything was coated with thick layers of dust. But upon hitting the ground, she had involuntarily set off what seemed like a literal dust-avalanche. It took a lot of coughing and waving her hooves in front of her muzzle before Daring Do could see anything again. As her sight cleared, she saw several rows of wooden benches, accompanied by wooden pedestals in front of each bench. At the other end of the room, a stone altar shined bright in the light of her oil-lamp, towering over the other pedestals. To her right, Daring was surprised to actually find something that resembled a bookshelf – albeit without any actual books or parchments. Or, nothing that could be recognized as such, anyway. What remained of what might have given an invaluable insight into Mareican culture had been reduced to piles of dust and scraps of paper that crumbled as soon as Daring so much as laid hoof on them. Her inner archeologist had to wince at the thought that she probably had inhaled several irreplaceable scrolls upon entering the room. Glancing around, Daring pondered the room's purpose. Considering the immense distances one had to overcome just to get here, Daring had already deemed the idea of monks frequently attending services in the temple as rather unlikely – perhaps coming down here only for special occasions? This chamber seemed like the place to hold a ceremony for a small group of ponies... Literally. On closer inspection, Daring noticed that the benches' proportions were off – they'd be rather uncomfortable for grown mares and stallions to fit in. As the light of her oil-lamp illuminated different parts of the room, Daring noticed the symbol of a waving flag on the shrine up front. Immediately, Daring was reminded of the carvings she had seen earlier, showing this symbol in the context of a devastated battlefield. Daring Do shook her head in dejection. She had seen her fair share of early ponykind's darker sides that history classes seemed to be all-too happy to just gloss over. Reminiscing over some of the less-than-pleasant aspects of some of her earlier adventures, in combination with her already sour mood, Daring's expression grew grim, as dark thoughts entered her mind. The shrine up front had just about the right dimensions. It could easily have been used for magical rituals of a... highly questionable ethical nature. As Daring stepped closer to the altar, her hooves struck something lying on the ground and sent it skidding through the dirt. Picking it up, the light of her oil-lamp revealed it to be a oddly-shaped wooden contraption, just about the size of her hoof. It was longer than it was wide, and it's lower half was flat, while the upper half was smooth, with a large bulk at one end. Two tiny pairs of wooden knobs were attached to either side, and through a hole at what Daring assumed was its back, she could just barely make out the metal reflection of a number of tiny cogwheels. All in all, Daring didn't know what to make of the device. But suddenly, something at the back of her mind screamed “familiarity” at full-force. She couldn't tell where this strong sense of familiarity came from. She had been in dozens of temples, naturally, some of those would remind her of others. Still, this was different. Scratching her head, Daring absentmindedly placed the contraption on the stone-altar in front of her. A quiet sound caught her attention immediately afterwards. Daring tensed. Had she triggered a trap? But no. The wooden contraption merely had rolled over the altar's flat surface and fallen down on the other side, likely due to a slight incline. Chuckling to herself, she trotted behind the altar and picked up the object of her momentary lapse. As Daring stood back up, taking in the room from a different perspective, Daring Do just... stopped. Her mind came to a complete and total halt, and then did a 180° backflip. Her mouth worked silently, yet barely so much as a breath escaped. Eyes glancing over the rows of seats and tables in front of her, Daring had a hard time putting the new tidbits of information that were coming in into a coherent picture. The adventurer had seen many things. Breath-taking feats of architecture, powerful magic and treasures of legend, which many-a-pony would consider naught but old-mares-tales. Rarely Daring Do could be found at a loss for words. This was one of those rare times. “B-But... But... Wha...? This – this doesn't make any sense!! What would this be doing here?” Glancing back and forth between the wooden object firmly grasped in her hooves and the small wooden desks and chairs filling the room, each of them showcasing previously unseen symbols like tiny hearts, horseshoes or flowers, she just couldn't reconcile the image with her expectations of what a temple was supposed to contain. The feeling of familiarity had been right. She had been here before. Not exactly here, of course, but in a place just like this. And it had not been a temple. It had been an elementary school. This was a class-room... a class-room for foals – miles below the surface, protected by countless death-traps, and built sometime about eight thousand years ago. The supposedly ritual altar she was now clinging to was the teacher's desk. The object she was unconsciously crushing inside her left fore-hoof was a toy. This definitely defied her expectations, and had been pretty much the last thing she had ever imagined to find in a temple. Daring found her mind reeling, buzzing with questions upon questions as to how this particular scenario could possibly be made sense of. Why would they have built a... a class-room inside of their heavily guarded temple? They couldn't possibly have sent colts and fillies down here every day just for study. Then where would they have lived? Down here!? Where would they have gotten their food from? Then, Daring realized that it wasn't just her mind reeling – in addition, her surroundings had started to spin. Slowly, she was getting light-headed. “Must be something about the dust in the air... I gotta get out of here!” Stumbling towards the entrance she had come through, Daring noticed an indentation in the shape of a door to her right. Her mind was getting hazy at this point. Later, she couldn't have explained what possessed her to try opening the door instead of heading straight for the hole in the wall. With her last reserves, she managed to slide the stone-door aside – and was rewarded with not-exactly fresh, but definitely less hazardous air instantly flooding her lungs, while an all-encompassing violet light momentarily added to her disorientation. Exhaustion from her trek in combination with an assault on her health – embarrassingly enough by dust-bunnies, a detail Daring would gladly omit in future retellings of her adventures – finally claimed her. Before she blacked out, she still had time for a moment of introspection as she took in a sight which in itself would also have been breath-taking, hadn't she already been robbed of her breath seconds prior. She had to correct her previous assumption that a class-room for foals would be the last thing she'd have expected to find down here. On a side-note, this answered the question as to where the little colts and fillies had spent their time outside from school. The cavern ahead was enormous. The ceiling alone must have been hundreds of meters high, scattered with some kind of magic crystal providing a steady illumination for what lay below – an entire city. After several uneventful hours of trotting through the seemingly endless expanse, Dash was beginning to feel the first signs of exhaustion slowing her down. While the athletic pegasus was built for speed, and her physical endurance was not to be taken lightly – given that she had a good night (and several mid-day breaks) of sleep – the lack of food and the sense of isolation in a deep, dark, and overall creepy cave were getting to her. The passionate flyer's wings already itching from disuse, the pegasus carried herself through the ever-repetitive landscape of rocks, rocks, scattered gemstones every now and then, and more rocks, growing more and more frustrated – and, oddly enough, bored. In stark contrast to the day's previous excitement, there was simply nothing interesting going on now. Like, at all. Asides from the river's quiet gurgling and the echo of her own hoof-steps, Dash couldn't hear a thing, and the scenery itself had lost its charm after the first twenty minutes. She didn't have anything to bandage her right wing that had taken the brunt of her fall, and every now and again, she'd have to consciously restrain herself from flexing the appendage to avoid further injury. To top it all off, she was getting mixed signals from her body's internal clock, insisting on it being both deep in the night as well as the middle of the day, judging by the time she had last seen the sun outside. With nothing else to do, the cerulean pegasus let her thoughts wander. She didn't feel too comfortable thinking about what had happened back in the collapsing tunnel. Contemplating her new-found super-powers and the steady increase of bizarre events just made her feel uneasy and seemed to be a quick way to get a headache. She had read her fair share of science fiction comics, and wasn't a stranger to the concept of parallel dimensions. It wasn't like she could openly talk about this kind of stuff anywhere near Twilight, least she'd dive right into lecture-mode – but even despite a lack of knowledge in the field of “quantum metal-psychics” or whatever, she knew that something didn't add up. She could easily have convinced herself that she had been propelled into another dimension that – no matter how slim the chances for that were – matched up exactly with the world described in the Daring Do book-series... if it weren't for the inconsistencies. All those small things that simply refused to obey common sense... Worse, it seemed to be centered around her. No, nothing was wrong with her – something was wrong with the world around her. It just didn't make sense. Wait... “not making sense” – where had she...? “...Oh feathers, no.” Could this be Discord's doing? Could the spirit of chaos and disharmony possibly have escaped from his stone prison? But dropping her off in her favorite book-series and giving her super-powers? Causing torches to randomly disappear and re-appear on demand? Unconsciously, Dash once more tightened the grip on the torch wrapped in her left foreleg, reassuring herself of its continued existence. No, Discord had been far from subtle about plunging the whole of Equestria into chaos. This wasn't his style. Dash breathed a sigh, but the tension didn't fade. The cerulean pegasus turned around and stared back into the empty darkness, the way she had come from. Holding her torch high, she glanced over the nearby walls, and then the cold stone-surface. Gemstones were glistening in the light of her torch, stalactites were growing on the ceiling. Still, the river she had been following remained the only true landmark. As Dash resumed her trek, her thoughts once more drifted back to her friends back home. She had been gone for more than a day now, maybe even two, and they would definitely have noticed her absence by this point. They might have gone so far as to organize a search party, but even so, they certainly wouldn't find her here. There was no way to inform them where she was, or even that she was okay. Hay, she still didn't have the foggiest clue how she had gotten here, or how to get back. Maybe Twilight's magic could do the trick, if only there was a way to contact her... Horsefeathers, she was stuck in the story of a book for crying out loud! She was literally cut off from her own world...! Hold on a minute there. Her own... world? Hmm... She may not have been able to contact Twilight, but maybe she could talk to somepony else. Twilight Sparkle was, without a doubt, the most powerful unicorn Dash knew – but there were others. Others that might be able to help her. Well, one other, anyway. Princess Celestia. From what Dash knew of the series, Daring Do's world had its own Equestria – and if Dash wasn't gravely mistaken, this “other” Equestria was also ruled by the immortal goddess of the sun... or, rather, an alternate version of her. If anypony could help, it had to be her. Getting a private audience with the princess might be a tad more difficult, considering that Daring's Celestia didn't know her, but she'd deal with one problem at a time. Of course, getting to this “other” Equestria in the first place was going to be a task in and of itself, especially considering her current location in an empty tunnel miles below the surface of a jungle on the other side of the world. But knowing that there at least was a potential way home put her mind at ease. The pegasus paused for a moment, ears swiveling. She listened intently to the quiet sounds of the river making its way through its bed, smoothed over untold amounts of time. Dash shook her head, uncertain what had prompted her stop. Although, now that she thought about it, she could go for a drink. Actually, come to think of it, she could also use some food... The last thing she had eaten had been a bowl of hayflakes for breakfast – back in Ponyville, before this whole thing had started. Afterwards, there never really had been the time or an opportunity for a meal. As if on cue, Dash's stomach made a rumbling noise that could easily have rivaled that of a dragon. (Granted, Spike was still a baby-dragon, but he was a dragon never the less, so that still counted.) Wistfully, Dash remembered that half-eaten pizza from the day before, her mouth watering up... Oh, what she'd give for a slice of that now! The water was cold, but that only made it all the more refreshing. Still, she couldn't help but feel her stomach demand food, of which the barren tunnel sadly was devoid of. Oh crud, had she fed Tank before she had left? The poor little guy must've been half-starved by now! Hopefully somepony had remembered him and was taking care in her absence. Dash scratched the back of her twitching ear, shooting a glance off to the side at nothing in particular. Hmm... What was Daring doing right now? Dash couldn't help but think she was missing out on some serious adventuring business! Instead, she was stuck in this drastically dull, brutally boring, excessively empty and endlessly... uh, endless tunnel of... terrible... uhm, terribleness. Urg. Now she was resorting to alliteration, and she was too tired to even do it right. Hitting a lull in her thought-process, Dash found herself staring at the ceiling, the pegasus' keen eyes taking in the numerous gemstones that could be found strewn all over the place. Her gaze shifted down to the nearby wall, which also was littered with gems of the same type. All of them were unusually small, just barely the size of a walnut. They were a dull shade of red, almost brown. She was certainly no expert on gemstones, but these didn't exactly look like anything her fashionista-friend Rarity would use for her designs. Maybe Spike might enjoy their taste, not like she knew much about what kind of gems dragons preferred over others. She only vaguely recalled something Spike had said about rubies and sapphires, but she had no clue what type of gem this one was. Her sharp, scrutinizing eyes kept wandering over the wall of gems shining in the light of her torch, as if searching for something. Dash tilted her head, examining a gemstone up close. She could see small tears and imperfections, the uneven sides smoothed over time. Dash stared at the gemstone. The reflective surface of the gemstone stared back. It was only when Dash could no longer suppress a yawn that the cerulean mare broke eye-contact. Blinking her eyes a couple of times, she realized that she had been standing in place for at least five minutes, and how tired she actually was. Exhausted, Dash plopped herself on the ground. She threw a glance over her shoulder into the empty void... Yeah, a quick nap would do wonders for her now. Suddenly, despite the rough terrain, the dark and relatively silent tunnel proved to be a peaceful and quiet resting place. Perfect tranquility. She had her mind all to herself. No distractions, just a calm river quietly splashing along-side her, and even that was barely audible at the moment. Everything went blurry as her eyes grew heavy, a content yawn escaping the cerulean mare. Dash smiled, already feeling the gentle embrace of sleep coming that would wash away her drowsiness, all her worries... ... . . . ... With a start, Dash jumped to all four hooves and spun around in a circle. “Who's there?! Show yourself!” she shouted, eyes searching hectically for whatever was following her. Jumping onto her hindlegs and performing boxing motions, Dash growled threateningly. “Come out! I know you're there! Come out right now and face me like a real mare, or I'll buck you straight to next week!” Turning about on her hind-legs to face her pursuer head-on, the pegasus' wings flared instinctively, causing Dash to lose balance as a stab of pain reminded her of the injury. After unceremoniously falling on her rump, Dash just sat there, her rapid breathing slowing down to a regular pace. What had just happened? She had been so sure somepony... or something had been there, watching her. It hadn't been a dream. No, she hadn't even gotten to dose off. But there was nopony there. There couldn't be. After all, she was in the middle of an underground cave-system, nopony had laid hoof here in what must have been hundreds of years, if even ever at all... Who could possibly be watching her...? Rainbow Dash slumped down on the cold stone-ground. “I'm... I'm getting paranoid. I... really need to get some sleep.” But as tired as she felt, sleep wouldn't come. She couldn't help it. No matter how irrational the thought, she felt like... something was out there, just... staring at her. It was extremely disconcerting. After twisting and turning for what felt like hours, Dash raised herself back to her hooves and slowly proceeded down the seemingly never-ending tunnel. The gemstones embedded in the walls reflecting the flickering light of her torch gave her the impression of hundreds of eyes lurking in the dark, following her every step... It was unsettling, to say the least. In an attempt to calm herself, she halted her trek once more, standing perfectly still. Her eyes wandered methodically from one side of the cave to the other, ever so slowly. In the near-perfect silence, Dash held her breath, her ears swiveling to catch any unfamiliar sounds. There wasn't anything there. Nothing gave cause to assume she was being followed. There was nopony watching her – it was impossible. She was completely alone. But then, why couldn't she shake the feeling that she was not? Rainbow Dash could feel the hairs stand up on the back of her neck, a prickling sensation that ran down the length of her spine. There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard. And yet she knew it was there. It was as if whoever or whatever it was... was everywhere and nowhere at once. She wasn't even sure if it was just one entity, either. The cerulean pegasus' shoulders slumped, as she raised a front-hoof to massage her temples. She had walked for hours with no end of the tunnel in sight. Her wing hurt and she hadn't eaten in over a day. The repetitive landscape was driving her nuts, and she was disoriented from sheer exhaustion, her energy drained by fatigue. All she wanted to do was to take a nap. And now there was... something there creeping her out, apparently stalking her, even though that made absolutely no sense at all, like so many things in this strange “book-world” she had ended up in. In sheer frustration, Dash turned back and yelled into the empty darkness. “LEAVE ME ALONE!” . . End of chapter 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .