//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Daring Do and the Hunt for the Hippogriff's Harp 
// by Tyrael 
//------------------------------//

July 5th, 2013
Baltimare, Equestria

Daring Do and Marion navigated their way through throngs of tourists and locals alike as they made their way around Baltimare's Inner Harbor. Serving as one of Equestria's major seaports since the 1700s, the Inner Harbor was now a popular tourist attraction, boasting world-renowned restaurants, shopping, museums, cruises along Horseshoe Bay, the famous Baltimare Science Center, the National Aquarium, as well as a collection of historic ships and submarines moored at the piers and open for exploration. Marion had been especially interested in the museum dedicated to the legendary baseball player Babe Hoof, but it, and all the other intriguing attractions, would have to wait for some other time.

Daring and Marion paused to spectate one of the waterfront street performers. an Earth pony breathing flames and walking along hot coals. The onlookers clapped their hooves as the Earth pony finished her performance by igniting a string of fireworks with her heated hooves. The pair continued onwards and a short while later had reached their destination - the Baltimare Aeronautical Museum. A sixty-foot propeller from some beast of an aircraft hung over the entryway of the massive museum complex, which had been designed to look like a hangar. A myriad of aircraft could be seen through the windows.

Daring started up the steps to the museum as Marion quizzically read the museum's sign and hurried to catch up. "I thought you said we were going to your friend's house?" Marion asked.

Daring winked back at Marion as she pushed open the doors to the museum. "This is her house, hon."

An aging pegasus mare, Slipstream Forelockheed, sat behind the reception desk reading a newspaper. Her coat was a sky blue and her hair was a light grey, streaked with white. Her cutie mark was of a winged star. The mare's eyes lit up as she spied Daring Do, and she flapped her wings, leaping over the desk to embrace her friend. She gave Daring a quick peck on the cheek. "Oh, Daring! It's always a pleasure to see you, hon. I don't think I've had a chance to talk to you since you got back from your last expedition. Everything went well, I hope?"

Daring smiled. "Better than I could have imagined. I found the tomb of a fourth century king, untouched by raiders!"

Slipstream frowned. "Really? There was nothing about it in the papers."

Daring laughed. "When we discover a find like that we tend to keep it under wraps, lest the unsavory sort head out there to plunder it. It will likely be months before the archaeologists finish excavating the site and go public with our findings, but swing by the house sometime and I can show you some photographs I took."

"Oh, that would be lovely. Well, Daring, who is your little friend?" Slipstream asked.

Daring introduced the hippogriff, "Marion Thunderstruck, meet Slipstream, owner of this museum and heiress to the Forelockheed fortune."

Marion gasped and shook Slipstream's hoof. "An honor to meet you, Miss Forelockheed."

Slipstream grinned and curtseyed. "Likewise, your highness."

Marion rolled her eyes. "Thank you, but you need not worry about the formalities. Just Marion is fine by me."

"Alright then, Marion. Now, I presume you ladies require my assistance with some aviation related research?"

Daring nodded and glanced around the museum, noticing the small groups of patrons and employees scattered about. "Can we move this conversation to your quarters?"

Slipstream held out her hoof towards a roped off stairwell. "Of course, hon. This way, ladies." 

Marion and Daring headed up the stairs and into Slipstream's private residence - a lush flat that would put some of the most luxurious Manehattan dwellings to shame. Featuring antique, ornate, hoof-crafted cherry wood furniture and a collection of artwork worth several million bits, the expensive décor reminded Marion of her family's palace back home. Slipstream led them into her study. The walls of the study were paneled in wood salvaged from the deck of an airship. Portraits of the Forelockheed family adorned the walls and peeked out interspersed between overflowing bookshelves and filing cabinets. The centerpiece of the room was a large, intricately engraved, antique campaign desk commissioned by Admiral Pitot Forelockheed in the 19th century during the Lemon Tree War, crafted with wood from the enemies' flagship after Admiral Pitot's fleet shot it down. The desk's engravings included the Equestria flag, the Royal Navy's insignia, and various battle scenes of engagements the Admiral took part in during the war.

Slipstream motioned for them to sit at a small table by a window overlooking the bay as she went into the kitchen. She returned with a glass of ice water for each of them and joined them at the table. Slipstream sipped at her drink and leaned forwards in her chair while rubbing her hooves together. "Daring Do and a hippogriff princess need my help. Ah, but not just any hippogriff princess. The rebellious youngest daughter. This should be interesting..."

Marion, a notorious party-mare before she became obsessed with finding the harp, frowned and looked at Daring, who shrugged her wings in response.

Slipstream gently pat Marion's talons. "I'm sorry, hon. You do tend to make the tabloids, you know. What would you like my assistance with?"

"We're looking for one of your ancestors' creations, a Clipper-class airship owned by the hippogriff kingdom, the Half-Blood's Lament was the name," Daring explained. "It was en route to Canterlot in 1476 and nopony has seen it since."

Slipstream rubbed at her chin with her wingtip. "Hmm... Oh! I was trying to recall why that seemed familiar to me," Slipstream said as she flew towards a bookshelf. She plucked a book titled Aeronautical Mysteries from the shelf and landed back at the table. She glanced at the index then flipped to the page detailing the Lament's disappearance. "Let's see. According to this author's investigation, they believe the Lament never made it to Equestria, having been blown off course and crashing in the Bermooda Triangle."

Marion pulled her notebook and photographs out of her briefcase and set it before Slipstream. "That seems implausible, as you can see I have some evidence that the Lament made it to Equestria."

Slipstream poured over the notebook and photographs and nodded. "Indeed you do. After you found the ship in the bog, your people continued to search, yes?"

Marion nodded. "My grandfather believed the Lament made it all the way north to the Unicorn Range, crashing there due to bad weather. They never found a trace of her, and I've been trying to search the Range myself, but it is an arduous task."

"Well, Marion, let me take a crack at it and with any luck I shall find this missing airship for you," Slipstream said, then rose and flew towards a filing cabinet and began rummaging through a collection of charts and maps. 

Daring leaned back in her chair and grinned at Marion. "Now you get to see her work her magic."

Slipstream returned and rolled out some charts on the floor. She moved a see-through overlay onto a chart and began to copy a flight path from one of the other charts. "This is the flight plan your missing airship was most likely following, having been the established route for hippogriff merchantmen since 1251."

Slipstream pointed towards Foggy Bottom Bog, which was slightly off course of the traced route. "Alright, hon. The vessel your great-great grandfather recovered was found here. The presence of hippogriff bodies with period armaments tells us it almost had to have been involved with the Lament's disappearance."

Slipstream began to run numbers in her head as she traced a path along the chart. "The pirates attack, the Lament gets off course. A Forelockheed aircraft can take a pounding, but even they have limits. The crew may be badly hurt, their ship may be damaged, they're losing airspeed, losing altitude..."

Her hoof stopped and she looked up at Daring with a frown as she arrived at the start of Everfree Forest, an infamous region known for its wild magic and unpredictable behaviors. Once home to the Royal Pony Sisters - princesses Celestia and Luna - it was the only place in all of Equestria that the clouds moved on their own, the plants grew by themselves, and the animals could take care of themselves. Slipstream shuddered. "And they crash land in the Everfree Forest, never to be seen again."

Marion pouted. "Is.. is that bad? What is the Everfree Forest?."

"It is a mysterious land rampant with magic," Daring explained. "Anything can, and usually does, happen there. If your missing airship is indeed there, there is no surprise that it has never been found. I remember an article about a notorious gang of thieves that tried to raid the Royal Pony Sister castle a few years back. They would never say just what it was that happened to them, but when they returned, half-crazed and near-death several months later, they all immediately turned themselves in and swore to never even think of stealing ever again."

Slipstream stood on her hind legs and put her hooves on her hips as Daring and Marion studied the chart. There was a twinkle in Daring's eyes, a twinkle Slipstream had seen before. "You're going to Everfree, aren't you, hon," Slipstream said, knowing full well that she was.

Daring grimly nodded. "The Lament almost has to be somewhere in Everfree, unfortunately. Just feels like the right place to me."

"Just what is it you think is on this airship?" Slipstream asked.

"The Half-Blood's Lament was carrying my people's magical harp that could control the weather," Marion confessed. "I've spent years trying to find it on my own, and..." She began to cry.

Daring put her hoof on Marion's shoulder. "We're getting this harp back, princess. I've survived more mummy's curses, booby traps, ambushes, kidnappings, super villains, snakes - oh gosh the snakes... and various calamities than I can shake a hoof at. We'll find the harp, I promise."

Marion wiped at her eyes and hugged Daring. "Thank you, Daring Do. I knew you were the right mare to come to!"

"I would like to sponsor this little excursion," Slipstream said. "All expenses paid, but in return I get whatever is left of the airship. The Clipper-class airships were all scrapped centuries ago, I'm sorry to say. It would make quite an attraction for the museum."

Marion thrust out her taloned hand. "Deal!"

An adventuring professional, Daring had already begun mentally tallying up what they would need in order to search for the Half-Blood's Lament. After a few minutes sunk deep in thought, she smiled up at the two mares. "Slipstream, think you can get a drop tank and camera rig for my plane?"

"Of course, hon," Slipstream answered. She looked cautiously around the room, "I'll even get you a state-of-the-art military grade set up, if you promise not to tell anypony. Perks of having a skunk works emblazoned with your family's name."

Daring laughed. "Wonderful. Alright, here's the plan. We'll do a standard search pattern over the Forest and while we're lookin', the camera will be clickin'. If we can't find anything, we can then analyze the photos and hopefully spot something our eyes were unable to. Sound good?"

"Sounds fine to me," Marion said.

"Alright then," Daring said with a grin. "How long do you think it would take you to get my plane ready, Slipstream?"

Slipstream frowned and nervously rubbed her hooves together. "Oh, Daring, you're really putting me out on a limb here," Slipstream said as she winked at Marion. "Is half an hour good enough?"

Daring chuckled and playfully batted at Slipstream with her wing. "I reckon that's just about perfect. Still several hours of daylight left. Depending on weather conditions, we ought to be able to cover a decent amount of Everfree before the sun sets. Of course, it is Everfree, so who knows what will happen in that regard."

"Alright, hon. You girls go get whatever supplies you need and I'll have my boys work on your plane," Slipstream said.

Daring hugged Slipstream before heading back downstairs. "Thanks, Slipstream. We'll see you in half an hour then!"

Marion bowed her head. "Yes, thank you so much for your assistance."

Slipstream waved at the departing mares and began to put away the charts when she got the peculiar sensation of being watched. She furrowed her brow and discretely glanced out the window, but there were few vantage points that would be able to see into the second-story window, and Slipstream saw nopony in sight. She shrugged off the feeling and hurried downstairs - she had a lot of strings to pull in order to fulfill her thirty-minute promise to Daring and Marion.