//------------------------------//
// Part 7: "It's harder to find what you're not looking for." 
// Story: The Death of Daring Do: The Engine of Eternity 
// by DuncanR 
//------------------------------//

Derring-Do and Rainbow Dash held on tight as the cable elevator descended from the zeppelin. The wind and snow were just as strong as ever, but this time there was no sun to light the way: the temperature had plunged even further below freezing, and everything was pitch black... even the inside of the elevator was barely visible.
The swaying sensation lessened over time, and the elevator finally settled on the freshly fallen snow with a deep crunch. The glass-and-fence doorway opened wide, blasting them both with a gust of wind. The glow-crystals that outlined the walkways were a dark, indigo blue. There was nothing else to see: the camp itself may as well have been gone.
"Stay close," Derring-Do said. "If either of us gets separated, we both go back to the elevator and wait."
Rainbow Dash shook her head. "Impossible... it's too cold to survive out here. We gotta meet up at the cave entrance, past all those heavy curtains."
Derring-Do glanced out at the camp. "All right."
"That's it?" Dash said. "No arguments?"
"You're the weather pony," said Derring. "Just promise not to argue with me once we reach those ruins."
They stepped out of the elevator together and landed knee-deep in freshly fallen snow. They walked along the pathways, using the dim indigo light to navigate the tents. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash grabbed Derring-Do and pulled her off the path.
"What's the big—"
"Shush!"
Dash led her between two of the tents and hunkered down against the snow. A moment later a pair of burly stallions walked right past them, looming out of the snow without the slightest warning. They were dressed in the same heavy winter gear as before, and had pieces of heavy equipment hitched to their sides like saddlebags. They were no more than a few yards away, but walked past their hiding spot without any reaction.
Derring-Do peered after them. "Good eyes on you."
"Fly through enough snow and rain, and you get an instinct for it... it's called 'keeping a weather eye'." Rainbow Dash leaned close and whispered, "I thought you said this place would be empty at night?"
"It was supposed to be," Derring said. "You'd have to be crazy to come down here after sundown."
"We came down here, didn't we?"
"Only for a short while," said Derring. "They must be patrolling at regular intervals."
"Or maybe they saw the elevator and thought somepony got lost."
"If that's the case, the first thing they'll do is go to the zeppelin and do a head-count... and the first thing they'll find is our empty bunk-rooms."
"We'd better make this quick, then!"
Rainbow Dash darted out of the hiding spot and followed the walkway, and Derring Do stayed close behind her. They dodged two more patrols with ease, but hunkered down when they caught sight of the cave entrance: there were a pair of stallions standing by the heavy tarp curtains, standing watch.
"Guards!?" Rainbow Dash said. "This is getting silly! What are they worried about down here?"
"Oh no," Derring hissed. "This is worse than I thought."
"What? Is it pirates? Smugglers? Secret agents?"
"Worse. Mall cops. Walski's investors must be richer than I thought... they probably sent a privately funded security team to make sure everything goes smoothly."
"...Isn't security a good thing?"
Derring shook her head. "It's a huge waste of time and resources. All they care about is making sure the investors get their money's worth. They're probably driving the professor crazy, poking their noses into everything like this. She must be under a great deal of pressure."
"That's no excuse for doing a half-flanked rush-job."
"I never said it was!" hissed Derring.
"Quiet!" Dash said. "We need to figure out how to get inside."
"All right... inside. Inside. Hm."
Derring turned to watch as half a dozen guards marched past them, two-by-two, heading towards the caves.
"I have an idea... follow my lead."
As soon as the guards marched past Derring-Do rushed out of the snow and walked right behind them, matching their gait and posture. Rainbow Dash fell in beside her and did the same. The guards marched right up to the cavern entrance and walked inside, and the two watch-ponies waved them through without a second glance. They passed through several of the heavy weather-curtains, and Derring-Do simply stayed behind the last of the curtains.
Rainbow Dash listened as the tromping hooves faded into the distance. "I can't believe that worked."
Derring-Do peeked through the edge of the curtain, then pulled it aside and stepped into the empty cave. "We gotta be as quiet as possible here. Any sound we make could echo for miles."
"Do we know what we're looking for?"
"Not exactly," Derring said, "but I'll know it when I see it."
Derring walked along the minecart rails and followed them deeper into the caves. They caught sight of a few other ponies: not all of them were big, bulky stallions, but their heavy winter coats made it impossible to tell who they were. Derring-Do nudged Rainbow Dash, then nodded to a corridor to their right. They turned towards it together, walking casually. The ponies here were too busy examining engraved stones and sorting through crates of rubble to notice them.
Just as they entered the corridor, the sound of tromping hooves approached from somewhere ahead. Rainbow Dash pumped her wings and flew straight up, pressing herself flat against the ceiling. She clenched her teeth and stared down at Derring-Do, completely exposed in the middle of the corridor.
Derring turned to examine a completely unremarkable patch of stone wall to her left, stroking her chin and muttering 'hmm'. A few seconds later, Dash watched a row of six guards march past in single file. Derring ignored them completely, and they returned the sentiment. None of them happened to glance up at the ceiling.
Dash waited a few more seconds, then dropped down from the ceiling. "I can't believe that worked."
"It's harder to find what you're not looking for." Derring continued walking down the corridor. "This way. It can't be much further."
Dash followed after her, glancing behind them every now and then. "I remember this place from the tour... it's where I saw the real-life ruins. Is that what you're looking for?"
"Yes. Walski said that they've only found one example of proper architecture. It's not much, but it's better than noth—"
Her voice trailed off as she entered the last of the natural rock caves. Ahead of them, visible through a large jagged hole in the wall, was a stone brick hallway. There were carved columns at regular intervals, with alcoves between them that held odd little statues... not ponies, or creatures of any sort. Just abstract, geometric shapes with sweeping, swirling surfaces. They took off their breathing masks and pulled their hoods back.
"This is as far as my tour got," Rainbow Dash said. "They let me look through the hole in the wall, but they wouldn't let me go in. I figured fair was fair."
Dash looked back at Derring, who was staring straight ahead in a daze.
"Hey," Dash said, "are we going in there?"
Derring scraped the tip of her boot against the jagged opening. "Dynamite..."
Dash walked up beside her, speaking softly. "Is this sort of thing illegal?"
"No. It's just..." She let out a wet sniffle. "I can't believe I looked up to her."
Dash glanced back, but saw nopony sneaking up behind them. "So..."
"Right." Derring-Do's voice flattened completely, and she climbed through the hole. "Stay with me, but be careful."
Dash nodded, and followed her inside. The hallway was wide enough for them to walk side by side, and there were short little cross-ways at regular intervals: the side halls were all quite short, but decorated with the same pattern of columns and alcoves. Before long, they came to the innermost area: a medium-sized room with a vast array of engravings on the facing wall.
"It's Aduu," Rainbow Dash said, stroking her chin dramatically, "but it's not a dialect I'm familiar with."
Derring glared at her for a moment, then broke into a smile. "Don't worry... technically, everything you said was correct."
"So it is Aduu? Does that mean this place was built by the Dzunturan?"
Derring stepped up to the wall and squinted at the columns of engravings. "It's definitely Aduu... but nopony is completely sure if that was really the language used by the Dzunturan. That's exactly the sort of missing link Walski is looking for: anything to connect the society to a location."
Dash walked up beside her. "She came an awful long way for that. That book you showed me before... the picture showed the city in the middle of a huge jungle."
"That was just a dramatization. It could be anywhere." She frowned at one of the columns. "The 'deep place'... or possibly 'sacred' place... where mystery becomes... liquid?"
"Is that what it says? Is it talking about this place?"
"Not sure. Aduu is a hybrid language: it combines hieroglyphic symbols with a complicated system of syntax. The words mean different things depending on how they're arranged." Derring Pointed at a symbol. "This one here, for example, is the symbol for light. But down here, the same symbol means magic... and here it means knowledge, awareness, or inspiration."
"I hate to be a wet blanket, but we are on a time budget here."
"Don't worry. I just have to figure out which passage I need to copy, so I can study it later." She took several sideways steps. "Place of rest for the object-which-is-inserted... either a key, or a weapon. That which creates the war-filled-with-peace..."
"That's messed up," said Rainbow Dash.
"Stone-heart of many stone-hearts, from the place of... the place of..." Derring-Do frowned intently. "The life-place of quiet-sleeping-still liquid...?"
Rainbow Dash stood beside her and waited, bouncing slightly on the tips of her hooves.
Derring-Do cleared her throat. "Could you please... give me a bit of space to think, perhaps?"
"Oh... right. Anywhere in particular?"
"Just stand in the corner," she said, "and don't touch anything."
Dash nodded, and backed away into the corner in question. There was a tiny clunk as her left hind hoof pressed one of the floor tiles a half-inch into the floor. Her eyes shot wide open and her back snapped ramrod straight.
"Let's see now," Derring muttered. " 'Life-place' could mean any number of things... but how does it relate to 'quiet-sleeping-still'?"
Rainbow Dash's eyes flicked side to side. The rest of her remained perfectly still.
"Or maybe that's in the wrong order... maybe it's actually 'mystery-place' of life-sleeping-still' liquid?"
"Derring?" Rainbow Dash hissed through clenched teeth. "I think I—"
"Ut-ut, I've almost... aha!" Derring pointed at a second column. "It's a double play on words... very clever! This part means 'place of living,' and this here means... 'still waters'."
"Derring? I really, really think you should—"
"City!" Derring spun around and smiled at her. "The City of Still Waters! There really is a lost city around here somewhere !"
"That's great I stepped on something."
She stared at her, aghast. "Dash! You promised to be careful!"
"It wasn't—!"
The room shuddered violently, and the floor beneath them crumbled apart all at once. Derring-Do let out a piercing squeal as she plummeted down into the shadowy pit below: Rainbow Dash remained standing on empty air for only a second, and then dove down after her as fast as she could. Derring's terrified scream reverberated off the narrow walls, somewhere in the distance.
After a few seconds of freefall, Rainbow Dash felt the vertical tunnel curve to one side: she turned in midair and slid against the smooth stone tile, tucking her wings close to keep them safe. After numerous twisting turns, she tumbled out into an open space and slid to a halt flat on her belly.
Rainbow Dash let out a groan and stood upright, looking around. She was standing on a large stone bridge that reached across a vast, subterranean canyon: a massive vertical crack deep under the mountain. She could see the end of the slide right behind her, now blocked off by a huge circular slab. The air here was swelteringly hot: she looked down each side of the canyon and saw numerous fountains built against the natural rock, each releasing a stream of glowing, molten lava. She peered over the edge of the bridge, but could see no bottom.
"Derring-Do?" she shouted. "Are you okay? Say something!"
No voice answered her. She walked further across the bridge and saw Derring-Do pressed up against a vertical stone column on the side of the bridge. She was hugging it with all four limbs, her pupils were tiny dots and her breathing was rapid and shallow.
"Derring!" Rainbow Dash ran to her side and checked her over. "It's okay, Derring! You're fine. Everything's fine. We'll figure a way out of this."
Derring said nothing, and continued to hug the stone.
"Okay, let's get you away from the edge of the bridge."
Dash gave her a gentle tug, and then a firm pull, but she continued to cling to the pillar. Dash tried to pry her hooves loose, but her grip was like a steel vice.
"Okay, Derring... you're gonna have to let go eventually."
Derring's voice was soft and uneven. "Nope nope nope nope nope nope..."
"Well... all right." Rainbow Dash pumped her wings and hovered over the edge of the bridge. "I'll go ahead and scout out the—"
"Aaaaaaah-no-no-no-please don't go anywhere!"
She landed on the bridge. "Oh... kay."
Derring cleared her throat. "Just... give me a moment. To... compose myself."
Dash sat down beside her. "Take as long as you need."
After a couple minutes, Derring's breathing slowed and her pupils dilated. She shuffled sideways, and Rainbow Dash helped pull her away from the edge of the bridge. Derring flopped on her back and gasped for breath.
"This is all your fault," she said.
Dash rolled her eyes. "You were the one who told me to stand in the corner."
"Why'd you come after me?" Derring-Do shouted. "If you had just stayed up there, you could have gone for help! Instead, we're both trapped down here! Nopony even knows where we went!"
Rainbow Dash stood up. "I didn't want to leave you alone. You might have been hurt."
"Which is exactly why you should go for help!"
"We stick together, and that's that." Dash stood up and nodded to the far side of the bridge. "You got any torches on you? I wanna see where this thing leads."
Derring staggered upright, knees wobbling.  "How can you be so calm and placid at a time like this!? We're in the depths of a lost, forgotten ruins, miles below the surface, with no food or water or medicine, no survival tools, and absolutely no hope of rescue!"
Rainbow Dash calmly turned to look at her. "Miss Do... I'm the element of Loyalty. You know what I call this?"
"A disaster? A catastrophe? A horrible, lingering death?"
"I call it Tuesday. Now do you have any torches, or not?"
Derring gave her a slightly dizzy look. She used her wing to open her saddlebag, took out a plastic rod with a string loop on one end, and tossed it to Dash. She caught it and bent it halfway, then hung the loop of string around her neck. The mixture of chemicals let off a bright yellow glow.
"Thanks. You better wear one yourself. Makes it easier to keep track of you." She tugged at the thick, wool collar of her heavy winter coat. "You know what? Let's pack these up for now... it's like a sauna in here."
"You don't have the slightest clue where you're going or what your doing, do you?"
"Of course I do," Rainbow Dash said, "I'm doing what Daring Do would do in a situation like this."
"You're looking to a nonexistent pony for inspiration!? You're going to get us both killed!!"
"You know, if it weren't for your horrible, close-minded attitude and your rude and disgusting personality, you could be just like her. You could be a real-life Daring Do—just as amazing and cool and legendary as anything in the stories—if you could do just one little thing." 
"Do I even want to know?"
Rainbow Dash paused to look back at her. "Never give up."
Derring-Do bit her bottom lip. Rainbow Dash continued walking across the bridge, and Derring followed after her.
 
 
 
Dash and Derring trotted through the brick-and-tile corridors that burrowed through the depths of the mountain. The turns were all perfect ninety-degree angles and many of the halls were two stories tall, with narrow balconies and bridges. They picked their path at random, but Derring was always careful to leave a chalk-mark arrow pointing back the way they'd came. She claimed to have a completely reliable system in place, and that was enough for Dash.
Her system gave them no sense of scale or direction: the catacombs were laid out like a series of mazes layered one on top of the other, interconnected by stairwells or two-story corridors. There were alcoves in the walls, like those above, except these had been placed with no obvious pattern. Instead of holding statute or engravings, they were empty and hollow... like windows opening into an oppressive darkness. They tossed a spare glow-stick into one, revealing a long, straight tunnel too narrow to crawl through. It was impossible to tell how far it went.
Rainbow Dash looked at a few of the other alcoves in the area. "It's definitely a network or something... maybe for moving fresh air around so ponies can breathe."
She jogged a few steps ahead. "The air is definitely getting colder the further in we go. yeah... it's definitely an air conditioning system. You know those giant skyscrapers in Manehattan? It takes a huge amount of work to pump fresh air in from the outside... they have to install tons of giant fans and big long ducts."
She glanced back, and saw Derring-Do trudging along. She looked a little dizzy, and her neck wobbled slightly as she moved. Her eyes darted towards every little sound that echoed back from the darkness.
"Hey! Derring-Do?" 
Derring flinched. "What! Yes?"
"So what do you think of the alcoves? What're they for?"
Derring glanced around, nervously, and gave her a wordless little shrug.
"Come on! At least take a guess!"
"I think... they're way too small to be an air filtration system." Her lower lip trembled slightly. "Oh no... we're going to suffocate down here, aren't we? We're running out of air right now! We won't even have time to starve or dehydrate!"
"Relax already. We'll figure something out. With your brains and my instincts, we'll—"
"My brains!?" derring stamped a hoof. "I'm a professor! I sit behind a desk! This isn't my job at all!"
Rainbow Dash grabbed her shoulders and gave her a shake. "Listen to me! It's not your job, okay? It's mine. I'll worry about getting us out of here alive, and you worry about translating ancient inscriptions."
"There are no inscriptions here!"
"Well then, we'll keep looking." Dash let go of her and continued onward. "What about the inscriptions near the surface? Tell me all about those."
Derring rolled her eyes, but followed after her. "I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing, but it seemed like... a monument. It was talking about a place called the City of Still Waters, but this doesn't seem like a city at all."
"Oh? What does it seem like?"
"The inscription said it's a sacred resting place, whatever that means... I thought it might be a giant underground catacomb, but we haven't seen any graves or sarcophagi."
"So maybe 'resting place' means something else. Any ideas?"
"Place of rest... but not for ponies." Derring-Do frowned and nudged her helmet up. "It might be a storage place, like a secure vault or a long-term archive. Whatever it is, it would have to be very important: items or information that the builders would have considered sacred."
Rainbow Dash stopped in her tracks and perked her ears up. Derring-Do looked up just in time to avoid bumping into her.
"Something wrong?"
"Just a sec." Dash spread her wings out to each side, perfectly still. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She stayed like that for several seconds, basking in something invisible.
"That way," she said, tilting her head without opening her eyes. "The air's getting cooler from that direction. Let's check it out."
"That's it? That's all you have to go on?"
"The temperature is changing, but there's no breeze. I think that's weird enough to investigate."
They continued on, using Rainbow Dash's finely tuned weather sense as a compass. Derring-Do continued to mark each crossroads with a chalkmark arrow, just as before, but the sense of purpose gave them both a quicker step. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing at all.