//------------------------------//
// Under the Tomb 
// Story: Daring Do and The Legend of Kakara 
// by P4 
//------------------------------//


Chapter Three


Daring woke up to a blurry mess. There was moss and mold covering the wet, damp, dark cavern she was in. There were broken rocks and pillars everywhere. After her raspberry red eyes adjusted to the dark, it was still blurry. As she looked up, she saw a speck up light. As everything came into focus, she remembered what had happened. Pushing away some rocks, she saw that her wing was, yet again, broken. She immediately looked around for her bag. She couldn't see it, so she struggled to get up. After making it back on all four hooves, she swayed a little, then went of her search for her enchanted bag.

"How do I always manage to break my wing and loose my stuff?" The khaki mare asked herself while kicking over a group of rocks. "I've become a master at bandaging myself."

Having found nothing, she returned to the spot where she had woken.  Only to find that her canvas bag was stuck in a fallen tree.  This was a problem, as the pegasus's wings had been damaged from the fall. 

"Crap" she muttered under her breath.

She then resorted to a small series of jumps over the fallen piles of pillars and stone.  Once she had reached her bag, she noticed a small spec of light in the distance.  She then grabbed her stuff, and proceeded to make her way down. As her hooves reached the ground,  they then sunk into the damp soil. She did not care about the dirt; she had gone through her entire life playing in it. 

She then proceeded to find the source of said light, having to make a series of turns around corners,  and found herself in a tunnel.  The walls of it were dimly lit. After obtaining a torch,  the adventurer held the light up to the wall.  The walls showed carvings of the ancient city that had once reigned over most of Equestria. They contained details of the aftermath of the kings death.  Depicting the citizens fear of the lack of a ruler. 

The pony was deep in thought, staring at the history carved in stone, when she suddenly stepped back.  Her gaze then focused on the torch that she was holding. 

"How could you be lit all the way down here? " she questioned with a puzzled look on her face. 

She turned and looked to where the torch had been found,  and noticed that the entire hallway contained torches that held the glowing flames.  She went on down the mysteriously lit hallway examining the walls on her way.  Stopping every couple meters to get a better look at the more interesting ones. 

As she came to what looked like the end of the tunnel, she entered an expansive room.  The room had three hallways that connected to it, and contained a black cube in the middle.  Daring went up to the cube and looked at the sides. Similar to the walls,  this too showed scenes from the past.  These instead showed a single pony, holding up what seemed like a glass disk, surrounded by a sequence of plant growth. 

She then looked up to the top of the cube.  The top had a geometric design on it, with lines cut into it. In the center of the design was a glass triangle. She picked this up to examine it. It's sides was a gold frame, and it was perfectly clear. She deposited the glass piece in her bag and returned to the design. 

"I've never seen anything with markings like this. " she whispered under her breath.

Her hoof found its way into her bag, and returned with a pencil and a piece of paper. She then placed the paper on the stone, and rubbed the graphite over it, causing the design to be traced. This was also folded and deposited in the bag. She looked up at the three hallways that would lead her elsewhere in the morning underground ruins. 

Uncertain of what path would be best, she looked around the room for anything that could be used to find out where each would take her. Walking around the walls proved to be of no use, as the old art only depicted scenes with the same piece that was on the cube, so she went back to the center.  There she noticed that the indentation that the glass was in, pointed down the hallway on the left. 

With the newly acquired knowledge,  she went down the tunnel with a bag around her neck and a torch in her mouth.