Series 1) Daring Do and the Alicorn Secret Saga

by AlmanacP

2) Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet

As a little filly Daring Do gazed down at the school book in front of her staring at the smaller strip of paper she had tucked away and hidden from the teacher’s eyes. The paper was a clipping from the Fillydelphia Times detailing an interview with Bravely Blue, an adventurous mare that had braved an underwater sunken city, fought off greedy pirates and bandits and managed to bring back a golden tablet!
Daring stared at the image of the tablet hungrily, in the centre of it there was a design surrounded by the ancient text that littered its surface. The symbol was a lightning bolt!
Feeling almost like squealing in excitement, the young Daring read the article for the fourth time, she swung her legs paying no mind to the school work she should be doing.

Daring was yanked from her reading by a loud voice next to her.
“Miss Diane Daring Danger Do, what do you think you’re doing?” A voice said from overhead as the paper was pulled away.
Daring looked up and eeped as she came face to face with Mrs Blossom, the violet teacher of the class.
“I…I…” The young foal stuttered, trying to find an excuse.
“You should pay attention Miss Do, or the world will be mine!”
“But I was just...what?” The filly looked up in confusion and her eyes widened as what had been Mrs Blossom before, suddenly became the monstrous ape-like form of Ahuizotl!
His callous deep laugh echoed around the room darkly as his claw raised, the young filly screamed as the claw struck down towards her!

Daring Do launched herself up from her sleeping bag yelling into the night, her yell joined by the flash of lightning and a deafening roar from thunder overhead, it was raining, and the only protection Daring had from the cold wetness, was a thin sheet of tarp propped on sticks.
“It…was just a dream.” She said to herself. Thunder struck overhead once more, making her twitch. Still feeling jumpy after the nightmare, she sighed and lay back down.
She’d been on the trail of this ancient artefact for a while now; in fact it was the longest she’d searched for anything. Daring had entered the tropical jungle, four hundred miles due west of where she had acquired the Sapphire Statue, the jackal formed jewel that now sit securely in a high security museum up the country. But these jungles were thick and the constant rainfall had made her trek more difficult. She’d thought about flying above the clouds now her wing had long since mended, but the cloud cover was so bad that she wouldn’t be able to search for the artefact from up there. She was once again forced to be grounded, and this time it wasn’t for just a few days….she hadn’t been able to fly for fifteen weeks!
Three and a half months had passed on this journey, three and a half months of being grounded, and three and a half months of dankness, rain and a stifling heat under the moisture that felt suffocating. It was reaching the point where Daring was considering turning back, but then again, she had a reputation to think of. Daring Do never gave up! But such thoughts were easy in the beginning; they were always easy to be cocky, to be the best. She had worked hard at being the best, but there comes a point in every pony’s journey when their resolve was truly tested to the limit; Daring figured this was her test.
She WOULD pass it!
She was Daring Do!
Danger was her middle name…literally.
With confident resolve she packed up her stuff and sealed her saddle bag, glaring into the foliage she gave herself a small smirk and galloped into the rain.
The brambles scraped at her hooves and muzzle as she pushed and ran through the thick jungle. Dashing over roots and fallen trees, she braved the jungle with a fierce grin. She’d been at this too long, spent too many bits and ran through far too much of her reserves to back down now, she would find that temple!
Daring often frequented temples in her treasure hunting, but lately it seemed to be quite the tradition. The legend said that an ancient temple had been swallowed by the jungle and held an item said to be the holder of some of the greatest magic in the world!
Such an object would likely be very dangerous. She couldn’t let anyone else take it and use it to hurt somepony. It needed to go to a museum.
So she ran, furiously determined to make as much progress as possible.
As she galloped she skidded uncertainly a few times due to the muddy ground, looking down for a moment to make sure she was still stable she nodded to herself before looking up with a smirk. The smirk didn’t last long as Daring heard a loud yelp sound out of her own mouth and felt her own eyes go wide before her brain even caught up to what was so surprising. There was a slope. She tried to stop in time but her attempts seemed to be in vain as she slipped and went over. The world seemed to slow as she fell before she struck the cold muddy floor.
Groaning, she tried to get herself to a standing position before suddenly the ground gave way. She grasped hold of a root as darkness erupted below her as the ground of the jungle seemed to crumble into a chasm below!
Her hooves began to lose their grip as she slid down; terror gripped her as she began to slip down further and further.
Daring Do suddenly lost her grip and fell down into the darkness below, but she would not let this defeat her. As the rocks crumbled and fell around her she flapped her wings, guiding her decent at a nearby wall, bracing against it she kicked out into the darkness, striking the hard floor, rolling and landing on her hooves. The sound of crumbling settled as the cave-in finally ceased. She looked back and saw what her rapid aerial acrobatics had saved her from. The way was entirely blocked; giant grey boulders blocked all but a sliver of light from a few cracks. She wasn’t getting out that way; she hoped the cave lead to a way to the surface.
Looking around, the light from some of the gaps in the rocks seemed to reflect off of something in the corner. She approached it and found the glinting object buried into the wall and covered in soil. She began to dig at the rock and soil with her hoof until the object came free, kicking it slightly with her hoof she noticed its weight, but managed to manoeuvre the object into a dim beam of light.
Daring gasped as she stared down onto the surface of a broken solid gold tablet. It had inscriptions over it, and in the centre there was a deep engraving of a triangle within three circles. She looked over the inscriptions and found most of them illegible. She found a small paragraph near the bottom that was almost able to be read:

“…SPATALIUM in A ter clusit et signavit,
Sequuntur videlicet sola mures.
Cornu sense de osse manet,…”

Her eyes widened and she considered the small poetry extract for a moment before something clicked.
“‘SPATALIUM in A ter clusit et signavit’? I’ve read that somewhere.” She exclaimed aloud. “But where?” She asked herself, unable to recall why it seemed so familiar.
She looked around the cave but unfortunately it was difficult to see, guiding the golden tablet she angled it to reflect the light, using it as a torch. She ran the light over the walls until it rested on what seemed to be an old fire torch. Daring grinned, packing the tablet into her bag she approached the torch; pulling a large match from her saddlebag she lit the tip on the wall and set the torch alight.
At once the cave was illuminated by the bright flame, the dancing lights flickered over the rock walls, and a quick glance told Daring that at the very least…she wasn’t trapped.
There were two directions to go, one nearby that led into the darkness, and another dark passage at the other end. Standing between them she looked them both up and down, thinking about it.
Daring chuckled and just closed her eyes, spreading her wings she waited, focusing. Pegasus wings were very sensitive to air currents, they had to be. All she had to do was wait for a light breeze…THERE!
Daring ran down the left passage rapidly. The breeze had flicked her left wing, telling her that the air was flowing in this cavern. That meant it had to be the way out!
She turned a corner, following the breeze, her wings slightly unfolded to catch the air currents. Turning another corner she stopped, blinded by a sudden light, shielding her eyes with her wing. When her eyes adjusted she moved her wing away, and came face to face with an entire golden city!
The city was under a huge dome of earth, and at the top was an oculus hole that let the light glare down.
“Wow…” She said, her voice echoing out around the cavern. “It’s…it’s the lost city of Eldarodeo!” She exclaimed. This was not what she had planned to find, a temple or two would have done her well, the jungle in this part of Equestria was full of them, but an entire golden city!
Daring stepped forward and began looking over the buildings, walking through the empty streets. The place was very bright, the gold reflecting the light from the oculus above. The streets were gold, the houses were gold, and the towers were gold. Everything shone and gleamed perfectly, time never having dulled the metal’s gleam. Daring Do approached one of the buildings and looked closely at the shiny surface, her reflection perfectly presented in the gleaming metal. As she looked something behind her dashed by, she turned to face it, glaring, looking left to right, but only still gleaming buildings met her gaze.
“Who’s there?” She called out firmly, her eyes narrowed as she gazed around her, listening carefully. But she couldn’t hear anything, which suddenly felt so odd. She couldn’t figure out why till she looked at the oculus. The large circular hole in the roof was bright, it looked like sunlight was glaring through…but wasn’t it raining outside? If so, why wasn’t the rain falling through the hole?
Forgetting the movement she’d seen, Daring Do readied herself to fly. It had been too long and her wings had started to cramp. Stretching them and her hind legs she dived into the air, her powerful wings launching her.
The thrill of flight hit her hard, the air soaring through her grey-scale mane as the adventurous mare dashed airwards for the large hole to solve the mystery it seemed to keep.
She burst through for the second time into a glaring brightness; she was momentarily blinded before she hit a wall. Momentarily dazed she fell down onto her back, the world spinning. Perhaps it really had been too long since she’d flown; that was a rookie move. Chastising herself mentally she climbed to her hooves and shook her head, the world slowly coming to a standstill. She sighed and looked around her. The room she was in was smaller than the cavern below, but still the walls were solid gold, but these ones were readily lit by fire torches. Looking around herself she noted that the room was perfectly circular, the walls reflected the fire so much the place seemed a lot brighter than the cavern below.
Daring sighed, the room not looking anything special, until she turned to see the wall she had struck mid-flight.
Daring Do’s eyes widened as she gazed upon a wall of ancient text, in the centre where five slots, two of which occupied by golden tablets, and three where missing.
Daring do gazed over the text, and found that the tablets all had writing in ancient Equestrian. Daring began reading the two tablets, but found they made no sense; she couldn’t understand what they were talking about before an idea struck her. Taking out the golden tablet from her pack she’d found in the cave, she slotted it into one of the gaps where some tablets were missing; it took her a few tries before she found the correct place. It was a poem!
Daring began to read aloud.

“Septem Objecta insunuent,
Magia dirigi ad divina,
Bullas est senex et plenus mendaciis,
Quibus videlicet ius aliud quod dividit.
Draconum invenitur in templis avaritia,
Sed ubi deficiunt venator mures succedunt.
A clavis aurea viam reseret,
intra-”

She stopped there as some of the text went onto one of the missing tablets, looking down she continued reading out what she could make out of the other parts.

“-SPATALIUM in A ter clusit et signavit,
Sequuntur videlicet sola mures.
Cornu sense de osse manet,
Equestri coloribus cæruleo queritur.
Ultimam partem, non dici potest,
Sed ab iis inveniri-”

She stopped as the rest was missing from the final part. She sat back on her rump and looked over the poem again and again; there was one part that stuck out in her mind.
“’Draconum invenitur in templis avaritia,
Sed ubi deficiunt venator mures succedunt.’?” She said to herself, thinking. Daring Do wasn’t the best with ancient Equestrian, but she was sure it was something like ‘A Jackal found in temples greed, Where hunters fail but prey succeed’, she was sure that was the closest translation.
“Could that be talking about the Sapphire Statue?” She asked herself, remembering how in the final and most important test of the temple, she had been forced to step on only rats, because the other stones on the floor had been predators, and stepping on a predator meant the stone would break and the result was a little more than a bad case of hot-hoof.
A clambering noise behind her made her turn towards the hole in the centre of the floor; she popped her head down and saw something run from one of the golden buildings to the other. She couldn’t tell what it was…but she could tell it had wings. Big black wings.
Daring turned back to the wall, she wanted to keep the poem, feeling that it was important somehow. She got an idea and pulled out some rubbing paper from her saddleback. Pressing the paper with one hoof over the poem, she used the other with some chalk to rub over the paper, at once the rubbing started working. She was getting a perfect copy of the ancient Equestrian poem!
She grinned as she looked at her finished work. “I am so awesome.” She told herself, chuckling as she put the rubbing in her saddlebag. Glancing over the hole again she saw no movement, jumping down she glided and landed deftly on the top of a building.
Looking around Daring tried to see a way she could escape the large cavern, the breeze she had felt before had to have come from somewhere. She spread her wings and moved left and right, the moment she picked up the breeze she flew in that direction. A corner of her mind still pondered about the strange winged creature that had moved among the buildings, but she figured it was a mystery she didn’t really need to solve. The way out however, that was a mystery the mare desperately wanted to know.
Daring Do raced between the buildings, searching for the origins of the air currents; spinning around a tower she shot under a bridge and soon the gaps between the buildings grew wider as she reached the outskirts of this city of gold. Ahead she saw an opening in the side of the cave, it looked dark and dangerous, but Daring Do could tell it was where the air was coming from, and the air had to be coming from somewhere, right?
She flew towards it and landed just before the opening, gazing now into the dark depths of the cave. Putting one cautious step in front of the other, Daring walked through the opening and into the blackness beyond, aware that with every step, she could be walking towards her very doom!
The darkness surrounded her, but still she walked, making sure to keep close to the wall, her wing gently sliding over the rock to make sure she didn’t lose her way. The air seemed to get less stuffy and Daring gasped as she found herself in another smaller cavern than the last, but this one wasn’t filled with an ancient golden city from Equestrian legend, it was filled with stars!
The walls twinkled and shined like a hundred constellations, shining brightly in the most beautiful of ways. Daring couldn’t help but stand and admire the beautiful sight, but it was as she admired the view, that something moved in the darkness.
Daring, being a seasoned adventurer, was on guard instantly. Dangers lurked around every corner for a mare like Daring Do, and the grey-scale maned pony was always at the ready for such surprises.
Listening to the darkness, Daring Do stood still, looking for any movement in the blackness around, any sound that reached her senses, and any motion that stirred the air. A roar tore through the cavern and Daring Do dashed to the side, rolling on the hard rocky floor as the ground shook from the impact of a great claw!
Something, black as a shadow and as large as a manticore, stood before her; reflective eyes glowing in the dark and a low rumbling growl that stood the fur on Daring Do’s flank on end.
A claw struck down and Daring was forced to back off, jumping out of the way as rubble exploded from the huge talon that struck the ground. A loud primal screech filled the room, rebounding off of the walls and hurting her ears. She saw in the darkness the outline of the enormous beast, but she also felt a breeze from behind her. She turned and ran, using her wings to guide her through the dark, following the breeze that fluttered her feathers. She yelped as a sharp rock hit her right wing, biting her lip and running despite the now throbbing pain. Bursting out into a larger cave she gasped, looking around at the ceiling that still resembled stars in a beautiful night sky, even if it was really just glowing crystals in the rock.
Knowing what it was didn’t take away its beauty though, and for a moment Daring Do found herself admiring the view before a loud screech from the tunnel behind her made her remember the danger. She dashed for another tunnel to her left, jumping over a fallen stalactite and bounding round a corner to see a glowing light in the distance. Picking up the pace she dashed through the opening and into a smaller chamber, but it wasn’t empty.
There in the centre of the chamber was a pedestal, and on that pedestal, glowing gently in the dull light, the walls sparkling with starry crystals, was a silver cup.

Daring Do approached the object gently, looking around for any sign of traps, but there didn’t seem to be any. She circled the goblet. Could this be what she’d been looking for? But how could something like this be the holder of ancient power? Sure, goblets hold stuff, like water or wine or apple cider but that didn’t mean they held POWER.
The roar behind her snapped her attention back to her pursuer, she wondered what the beast was, but it was always too dark to see it properly. She grabbed the Goblet in her maw and stuffed it in her saddlebag before heading back down the tunnel she’d come from; sadly, there wasn’t another way out. She reached back into one of the open caverns and saw the outline of the black beast nearby, she dashed for another tunnel.
Daring could hear the approach of the great beast as she burst out into the light of the golden city, glancing over her shoulder she saw that despite the light, the monstrous creature chasing her was still dark, as though made of the very night.
She galloped around a corner and dived through a low window, hiding on the inside. Her heart pounded in her chest as she panted, she could hear the soft clatter of approaching talons on the golden cobbled streets.
When she heard it go past, she glanced out of the window and looked at the beast properly for the first time.
It was a griffon, but a griffon the likes of which she had never seen.
Black feathers donned the giant beast that was more than twice the size of any griffon Daring Do had ever seen, the talons alone were as large as a pony’s head and the eyes glowed brightly in a way that sent a shiver down the adventurer’s spine.
She backed away from the window and turned around, the inside of the building was still gold, but tattered. It looked like it had once been lived in, golden tables and chairs that were huge in size. She noted a griffon’s bed; they were always easy to spot, large things made out of wood and always gnawed at the edges, a habit of griffons in their sleep.
Daring Do felt the pieces fit together in her mind. The Ancient Golden City of Eldarodeo had once been inhabited by griffons!
And if the bed was any indication…big ones.
Daring Do would wager that the ancient city had once been inhabited by griffons like the one outside, big and black, but if that’s the case, then how had it been down here so long?
It was a mystery she wasn’t sure she could solve, but what she knew she really needed to do was get out of here. She prepared herself and dashed out of the window. Her wing had still been hurting where she caught it but it wasn’t actually damaged, so biting through the odd sting she forced herself out as fast as possible.
She heard a terrifying screech behind her and the griffon was on her tail!
She dashed round several corners as the beast gained on her, but Daring Do could only grin.
“You think you’re faster than me, do ya?” She said before angling her wings, catching the gust and rocketing forward as fast as she could, pulling away from her adversary. She went into a tunnel, turned a corner, entered a cavern, turned another corner, dodged a stalagmite and began to see a light ahead!
Daring Do heard a crash behind her as the griffon began flying down the tunnel loudly; the sharp rocks above her began to fall!
Spikes lashed down powerfully and Daring had to dodge back and forth, ducking under one and round another, her tail getting clipped painfully but soon she burst into the light! It blinded her for a second; she spun in the air, dived to the floor and landed in a cloud of dust. She grinned. “Another day…another adventure.” Sitting back she sighed gently.

The ground shook beneath her as a claw wrenched up and slashed at her, she dashed back and the tip of her hat was sliced open. She stepped back as the giant black griffon crawled its way out of the ground, the floor crumbling behind him. He screeched and ran at her, claws waving viciously, she leapt to the side as he ripped right through a tree that had been behind her. She charged at him, her right forehoof pulled back for a strike when he turned and lashed at her, striking her and sending her sprawling across the hole in the ground and against a tree.
The large griffon began to approach, and Daring noticed the ground beginning to crumble near her. She narrowed her eyes and grinned, the beast charged at her, and at the last second, she dashed to the side, turned and bucked out with her hind hooves.
Daring’s powerful kick hit the griffin in the side, causing the beast to stumble perilously close to the edge of the hole. Daring turned to the beast and smirked.
“Next time, pick on a pony less awesome than me.” She sneered before stamping her hoof once, causing the rocks to split. The ground caved in, and the griffon shrieked as it fell to its doom.
Daring Do finally allowed herself a moment to relax, she turned away and began walking. Within a day she reached a town and her informant. She passed on the goblet to be placed into a safe place when a purple Pegasus flew up; his name was Swiftcall and constantly delivered her important news when she needed it.
“Daring Do! I have urgent news!” He landed nearby and out of breath.
“What is it?” Daring Do asked rapidly, her eyes wide. There wasn’t usually an emergency unless…a certain someone was involved.
“It’s the Sapphire Statue!” He yelled. “It’s been stolen!”
Daring Do felt the fur on the back of her head stand up.
“W-who?” She hesitated, already feeling she knew the answer.
“Ahuizotl!” He exclaimed.
Daring Do narrowed her eyes.
“I knew it.” She said. “But why?” She said loudly. “Why would Ahuizotl steal the Sapphire Statue again? Why would he go through the trouble and take the risk? Why does he need it so badly?” She asked herself. But as the creeping up her spine continued, Daring Do got the distinct feeling, that those were questions she’d find out the answer to….very, very soon.