"You thought you could evade me and capture the relic for yourself, but you are sadly mistaken, Miss Do.'" Ahuizotl caressed the sapphire statue as he held it, his eyes never leaving the treasure even as he gloated. “And now, you shall meet your doom!”
Daring's head still swam as she drifted back to consciousness and the sound of Ahuizotl's gloating. A shrill whistle and a moment later she caught the forms of his feline minions approaching, wielding clubs and maces and rope. Daring tried to fight back, but her feeble flailing did little to dissuade her assailants, seeming only to draw a few sharp strikes with a club or backhand of a paw.
The world drifted in and out of focus as Daring found herself quickly bound and gagged. She could feel the rough texture of worn stone under her hooves as she was dragged along, the vague shapes of tree's swimming into focus for brief moments before her world was once again consumed by darkness. Voices echoed liked they were at the far end of a tunnel, words lost to the strange distortions and she soon found herself trying to fill the sounds away as her already aching head grew worse.
She felt more then saw them enter the structure. She didn't know what it was for sure, but it felt cool and damp and the smell of moss and wet stone hung in the air. Lit torches rested in their sconces along the wall, their flickering light cast long and strange shadows over the glimpses of ancient murals. The lighting finally evened as they finally came to a stop and Daring managed to tilt her head back and look around.
The chamber would have been small if not for its height. The roof hung so far over head that Daring could have used the space for diving practice if her wing had been good, a hole somewhere in it letting light spill into the space. The walls were unadorned save for the two doors – the on they had entered by and an identical archway opposite them – and a carved depiction of the Hayan sun hung half-way up the opposite wall. The room itself was completely bare, save for one object – A large, flat-topped, stone table about the size of a bed. It was intricately carved, seemingly out of one massive piece of stone, and its dark color made it shadow against the moss covered brownstone walls. Daring suppressed a nervous gulp. She had seen a table like that before, on her prior trips to the region.
It was a sacrificial altar.
“Tie her down.” Ahuizotl's cats literally jumped at their master's order, eagerly leaping forward to complete the task. The pins and needles sensation that had been plaguing her limbs since she had first tarted waking up had finally vanished, and the jolt of adrenaline from seeing the altar had managed to dispel the worst of her headache. This all meant that the cats, having expected an easy time of things like when they had first caught her, were in for an unpleasant surprise.
Daring managed to get a few goo hits in, and she was fairly certain at least one of them was going to be walking away with a broken nose, but four against one were never good odds and she was still mostly tied up to begin with. The combined efforts of all four felines were too much, and soon two of them were pinning her face up to the altar while the other two began wrapping the ropes tight around her and the table. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Ahuizotl watching on with satisfaction, no doubt pleased at the idea of finally being rid of his greatest enemy. “My my, Daring Do – this is so very unlike you.” He casually sauntered forward and gave her injured wing a flick, making Daring flinch as she muffled a small cry of pain. Ahuizotl grinned. “Wing problems, Miss Do?”
Daring willed away the pain and shot a glare at Ahuizotl with as much malice as she could muster, hr breath coming in small pants as echoes of pain rain through her wing. “You won't get away with this, Ahuizotl!”
Ahuizotl considered her for a moment before calmly turning his back to her and walking away, his felines close behind. He paused next to the door before turning back to her, managing to maintain his level gaze for a moment before breaking out into a smile of glee like a foal on Hearth's Warming Eve. “But I already have!” He pulled a lever near the door, giving one final cackled before turning his back on Daring. The door slid shut with a resounding thud and the walls groaned. The structure must have been hundreds, probably thousands, of years old but Ahuizotl must have had some work done on the place for the special occasion of ridding himself of his greatest enemy since the mechanisms were working flawlessly.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Daring couldn't hold back the somewhat exasperated sigh that passed her lips. “Not again...” The walls slowly began to close in like a massive compactor, and Daring's eyes went wide as dozens of vicious spikes slid free to pepper the wall. She quickly glanced between the two now spiked malls as the closed on her in slow but inexorable shifts and shudders. Daring found herself wondering if there was going to be an 'again' this time.
A hiss echoes from a wall behind her as snakes slowly started to slither down the wall, likely disturbed from their borrows by the same machinery that moved the walls. A moment later a series of stones high on the walls around the room popped lose, and sand began pouring in. The faint scent of the jungle river danced across her nose. “Quicksand!” The sand was already pouring in at a staggering rate, the alter she was tied to beginning to shift from the effects while she struggled with her bindings. She watched the walls out of the corner of her eye as she fought against the ropes, managing to spot the first of seemingly hundreds of spiders as they skittered out of the wall and down the spikes.
She racked her brain for ideas, for anything to let her escape. Her ears twitched as she felt the spiders start crawling over and around her as she wrestled with the ropes, part of her wondering how long she would last if one of them actually bit her. She was really hoping she wouldn't have to find out.
She thudded her head back against the altar out of frustration, only managing to dislodge her trusty hat from where it was perched on her head and slide it down over her eyes. She was half-way through the idle motion of shifting it back when inspiration struck. She'd only have one chance at this, so she had to make it count. She carefully took aim before giving her head a flick, launching her hat forward before she caught it with her hind hooves. She took one last look around, working out the angles, and with a grunt of effort launched her pith helmet with a kick.
It bounced and ricocheted through the chamber before finally catching the lever Ahuizotl had pulled to set the machinery in motion. The lever switched, and the walls shuttered to a stop before, mercifully, began to slowly receded and the sand drained away, the same machinery that flooded the space clearing it once again. Daring grinned and gave the ropes one final wretch, a frayed section finally failing and letting the binding come loose at last. Climbing down of the altar, Daring retrieved her hat and, after perching it back on her head, took one look at the disabled death trap. “Another day, another dungeon.”
Now no longer at risk of becoming a permanent addition to an archaeological site, Daring took a moment to look around. Red stone lined the tops of the walls and paint and stucco flaked from them and added to the dust that hung in the air with her every step and breath it seemed. What remained of the now dulled and dirtied murals depicted scenes familiar to any scholar of Hayan mythology. Stories of sun gods and serpents, and the rise and fall of there forbearer's. To most modern ponies, it was a dark, scary history. To Daring, it was simply the history of an age long past and of creatures long since forgotten.
Daring scanned the wall, her mind idly noting the various mythological figures almost automatically, until one figure made her pause. It was, like the rest, faded and worn, but it was still somewhat recognizable. It was hard to be sure, given the Hayan style of artwork, but Daring would almost bet that it was a dead ringer for Ahuizotl.
Daring tried her best to dismiss the sight and forced herself to move on. She had more important things to worry about then the lineage and origins of her greatest enemy. That was a riddle for another day, preferably one where she wasn't stranded in a jungle and trying to work out where the hay Ahuizotl went with an ancient artifact after leaving her in an antiquated death trap. Again.
Daring couldn't help but sigh at the realization that, once again, this sort of thing was almost normal for her. "Come out to the Hayan coast,” Daring muttered in a vague imitation of one of her co-workers. “we'll get together, have a few laughs...” Daring gave a small chuckle. “Heh. Not that I can really blame any of them – pretty sure I made my own mess for this one.”
Her hoof falls echoed through the ancient temple and for a moment Daring worried that she was going to get caught again. Ahuizotl, it seemed, had been as smug as always after her capture and left with complete certainty of Daring's doom. The temple was completely empty save for Daring, her shadow, and the menagerie of snakes and spiders she had left behind in the altar room. There was neither hide nor hair of Ahuizotl or any of his cats. It seemed somebody hadn't learned their lesson. Well, Daring mused, she would be more then happy to give a remedial lesson. The only question was how she was going to find him in the expanses of the islands jungle.
Well, if there was one thing Daring knew how to do, it was find things. She had found that statue once, and she would find it again one way or another. So, Daring gave her hat a tilt back and set to work. First thing was first, she had to pick up the trail. She was used to dealing with threads hundred or thousands of years old – she was sure she could pick up a trail that was an hour old, at most.
The stone floor of the temple was covered in a layer of dirt and debris, collected over the ages as the jungle slowly tried to reclaim it. Daring swept her gave over the floor before trotting over to the wall and grabbing one of the torches. In the improved lighting, what she was looking for was far more obvious – a menagerie of paw prints piled on top of each other. A few that she could make out where the tell-tale paws of Ahuizotl's feline cronies, while another set was the unusual and distinctive prints of Ahuizotl himself. The trail, unsurprisingly, led straight down the hall. The only question was whether she would be able to follow it.
Daring made her way out of the temple and back into the open air of the Hayan jungle, constantly keeping one eye on the trail of prints. Out in the sunlight the trail was slightly harder to make out, now without the contrast of the temples shadows, but she could still make them out. Sure enough, they headed straight into the jungle. Daring was about to give herself a pat on the back when she finally took notice of where she was.
The temple was placed in the middle of a almost perfectly circular depression several stories deep, at least. The sound of a babbling stream somewhere behind her hinted at its geologic origins, but that wasn't really of intrest to her at the moment. “Of course,” Daring muttered. “I'm stuck in the bottom of a cenote.” Cenotes, as this sort of depressions were known as locally, were common spots for Hayan temples. Especially ones of the darker variety, like the one she had just escaped. The Hayan's believed that cenotes were gateways to the afterlife, and therefore treated them as sacred sites. They always made good dig sites since you could be almost certain that something was at the bottom of one.
A stranded adventurer, for instance.
Well, all she needed to do was find the way Ahuizotl had gotten out and use it herself. The trail faded as it stretched into the root tangled mess of the trees, but the cenote wasn't very large – only a few hundred meters across, and walking the perimeter wouldn't take to long. Sure enough, she was about half way around when she found what she suspected was her ticket out.
The once grand flight of ceremonial steps had long since crumbled. Like the road behind her that had been claimed by the jungle, the ravages of time and the environment had reduced the steps into naught but a piles of vegetation choked debris, the only parts remaining overhead hanging past the edge of the cliff precariously, the occasional gentle breeze sending small pieces of stone tumbling down to join the rubble pile. Daring squinted and could just barely make out what she thought might have been a spool of rope, or perhaps a rope ladder. How the hay had they gotten her down here anyway? Minor mysteries aside, the rope did her no good coiled several hundred meters overhead. A wince of pain shot through her has her wing twitched in frustration. If it hadn't been for that crash, She could be up there in ten seconds, tops. Then again, if she hadn't crashed she wouldn't even be in this mess in the first place. Either way, she was grounded at the moment, and that left her with a big old problem to contend with.
Ahuizotl had no doubt hauled the rope up behind him after his departure – an actual clever move on his part, for once. With her busted wing she was as good as stranded in this hole until the cows came home – and she knew a few. So, now she just had to work out how to climb up roughly 200 or so meters more or less straight up. Without wing power. Right. She briefly considered trying to climb her way up, but the idea died a quick death after she gave the cliff walls a cursory glance. Hoof holds were few and far between, and the few she could spot did not look like anything she wanted to be counting on while that far off the ground. With climbing and flying off the table, all that left was for her to get creative.
Unfortunately, the ways to get up a cliff like that were fairly limited. Climbing gear was one way, but she would have to make it herself and she sure as hay didn't trust vines that much. A quick swing was one thing but a cliff climb was a little much. Daring let out a sigh as she dropped onto her rump, kicking up a small puff of dirt. “Come on, think...” Daring muttered to herself as she tapped a hoof against her forehead. “What are you missing? There has to be another way up.” And it would make sense – they would have needed another route just to get material down into the cenote before the steps had been constructed. Some sort of ramp, or a switchback, or something. But she had walked the whole perimeter...wait.
She had only walked half the perimeter. Daring facehoofed at her own incompetence. “Darn it, Daring...” She started working her way around the rest of cliff face. Sure enough, she found what she was probably looking for another third of the way around from where she had started. A steep walkway was carved into the side of the cliff face until suddenly cut into the cliff face itself, disappearing into the rock. Every so often along the parts she could see some sort of small shrine or shelter sitting on top of the path. A few part of the cliff had fallen away, leaving precarious gaps in the already dangerous route. “Well, its a lot better then trying to climb up this thing...” Daring muttered as she started cutting through the foliage to make her way to the base of the path. Up close, it looked a lot steeper, but it was still a better option then an afternoon wall climb.
The path was slick, water trickling and streaming down from above, flowing along the path or cascading down on her head in little falls. One eye carefully on the cliff above her, one ear twitching with every shift or tumble of rock. She was a good couple of stories up by the time she reached the first shrine. It was a fairly simple structure, the inside holding nothing more then a couple of alcoves for torches and some indentations that might have been used for anything from burning incense to holding votive offerings to their ancestors. Any remnants had long since vanished to the ravages of time. She passed through it in subdued silence, stepping back out onto the vine covered cliff and continued her slow trip up.
The first switchback came shortly afterward, the path leveling out briefly during the turn before continuing its way back up. The higher she climbed, the more precarious every step became and the more often and the wider the gaps became. Cracks and fissures became full on chasms that required careful skirting or, more often, a good leap to get across. Daring did her best not to consider what would happen if one of her jumps came up short.
After rising another story or so, Daring had finally reached one of the spots she had spotted from the ground. The carved path gently turned to the right, disappearing into a small opening cut into the cliff face. The interior was lit only by what sunlight could angle itself through the opening, leaving a dim pool of light that quickly turned into darkness. With a huff, Daring started in, guided by the sliver of light. Soon though, the only thing the light was showing her was where the entrance was. One hoof came up, groping around for a moment before settling on the cavern wall before Daring started forward again. Daring waited for her eyes to adjust as she pushed onward, but the darkness seemed to be all-encompassing. It was so dark that she didn't even see the cavern wall until she had walked right into it. Daring bit back a curse has her hoof left the wall to rub at her now sore nose even as she glared at the still basically invisible wall. “Stupid cave...” Daring grumbled as she started feeling around for something to use as a torch, a small grin appearing on her face as her hoof fell onto what felt like a torch. “gotcha.” She pulled the torch close while she dug into her pocket, hoping there was still a match in there. Luckily, there was, its base broken but otherwise intact and luckily waterproof. She took the match, struck it against the wall and lit her torch.
The first thing she saw was that the wall she had run into was covered in old, worn carvings. The second thing she realized was that her torch was a stick with a pony's skull on one end, and that she had lit what was left of it hair on fire.
“Gah!” Daring nearly fumbled the macabre light source, but managed to catch it before she accidentally snuffed it out. She regarded it warily for a moment, but she didn't see an alternative light source on hoof at the moment. So, it seemed she was stuck with her new friend burny. She regarded it for a moment. “If you give me any advice, I'm ignoring it...” She paused for a moment. “Probably.”
Daring trekked onward, past the turn she had missed in the dark and further into the tunnel. Part of her idly mused that, if Coco was here, she probably wouldn't have made it ten steps without making the skull talk.
Surrounded by her small bubble of flickering firelight Daring could almost feel the older hind parts of her brain shouting at her and gibbering in fear, Her ears jumping at ever small sound. She soundly suplexed such thoughts into submission, focusing instead on more important details. Details like the slight breeze that was drifting through the tunnels from deeper into the mountain.
It was a slight thing, but being a pegasus had a few perks less obvious then the feathered bits on her back. At the very least, it meant that the there was some sort of opening further ahead. Sure enough, as she rounded the next corner she could see a series of golden rays illuminating the dark tunnel. Daring felt her pace sped up as that same hindbrain from earlier drove her toward the light. The hall was wider, higher, and longer then the tunnels she had passed through earlier, and far more carefully detailed. The light she had seen poured int through a row of windows that lined the top of one wall, stretching the entire length of the hall. Opposite them, on her right, the wall was decorated with numerous Hayan figures and a wide assortment of gems. Daring quirked an eyebrow as she noticed something odd and glanced back up at the windows above her. Sure enough, they all looked the same – no difference in shape, size, or height. But the beams they let through were all at different angles, some landing higher on the wall, others lower. All of them, however, landed on one gem or another.
That last detail made Daring's hooves start itching, which she was fairly sure was not a good sign. Still, only one way to find out. “Sorry Burny.” Carefully, she positioned her torch just outside the nearest beam before plunging it into the light, blocking the matching gem.
A oddly familiar 'woomp' echoed through the tunnel, followed by small 'ping'. Daring looked at the side of the torch and sure enough there was a small dart poking out of one side. “Wow, these guys really liked their blow darts.” Alright then, don't step into the light. Got it. Daring pressed herself against the left hoof wall, underneath the windows, and started to shimmy her way across the hall. Despite the height the window were at, she found herself having to duck on several occasions as she made her way across, holding her breath during a few moments when parts of her started to edge into the beam as she wondered just how much of those gems had to be obscured to trip them. Luckily for her, she never found out.
Progress down the hall was arduously slow, hampered by both the narrow path to get passed the beams as well as her need to carry her torch along with her. Finally though, after what seemed like an eternity, she was clear. “Same day,” Daring mused. “Different dungeon.”
Deeper into the mountain, and she found that paradoxically it was getting easier to see. Sky lights over head and slits along the walls let light trickle into the space, illuminating murals and carvings on the wall. They seemed to be telling story in reverse – starting with the Tartarus-like pit of their mythology and slowly working its way toward the surface, like the Celestine Comedy's poet going backward. Of course, Daring realized, she was the one going the wrong way – to anypony descending to the temple, it would have been quite an apt tale. They wold slowly make the pilgrimage down from their over-world, down to the gateway to the underworld in th company of their myths. That left Daring wondering about the dart trap she had gotten past. Was is supposed to be some sort of test for the faithful, or did they just turn it on at the end of the day when the last pony had left for home?
The same question occurred to her not long afterward, as she found herself facing another obstacle. This one was thankfully much simpler – a big hole in the ground. It stretched the entire width of the hallway, and it was wider then she cared to try and jump. She kicked a small stone into the hole and listened as it bounced of the walls a few time, waiting for the telltale sound of it hitting the bottom. The sound never came. “Figures.” Daring groused. It was probably one of the natural chasms of the mountain, carved and built into the surrounding temple complex she was standing in at the moment. Worshipers had likely brought a bridge with them when they came, hauling it back behind them when they left. It wouldn't stop anypony who brought their own bridge, but most ponies didn't carry bridges around just in case.
It was stopping her well enough.
There was a single skylight over the hole, partially blocked by a thick tree root that had grown over part of it in the intervening centuries. It looked like it could support her weight...if she had something to get around it. Man she wished she had a whip right now. Would have made this easy – but of course she hadn't packed it, this was going to be an easy trip, not like her usual excursions at all. Daring gave an unlady like snort. Like she could ever have an 'easy' trip.
Without a whip, she would have to get creative. Luckily for her, the place was literally covered in vines. She picked through them until she found one to her liking. It wasn't quite as long as she would have liked, but it looked far sturdier then the other ones. She took one end and tied it around a decent sized rock for a weight and gave it a few test swings, arcing it through the air in gradually larger circles. Finally satisfied with the product, she marched to the edge of the hole, made sure the vine was wrapped tight around her hooves, took the weighted end in her mouth, gave it a few swings to build up speed, aimed, and let it go.
The stone sailed through the air before arcing over the tree root, swing down, around and then back up as the vine caught on the root. The rock sped around the root in circles before coming to a stop with a thud, its slack run out. Daring gave her vine a testing tug, but it held. “Alright,” She wrapped the vine around her hoove a couple more times. “Here goes nothing.”
She leapt of the ledge and swung over the abyss toward freedom. She had, unfortunately, underestimated the size of the hole, and found herself starting to slow down hen only a leg's length from the opposite ledge. Acting quickly, she unwrapped her hooves from the vine and let the gained momentum sail her forward, forelegs stretching out for the edge.
She landed with a soft 'oof' and managed a small smile at her success before she felt herself starting to slip. Her hooves scrambled for purchase, looking for a crack or a vine or anything she could use. She finally found a vine and greedily took hold, hauling herself up until she could splay her self out on her back on the cool stone. “Okay,” she managed between panting breathes. “Let's not do that again.”
Daring pulled herself back onto her hooves and trundled out of the hall, away from the gaping hole and back into the sunlight. Daring let out a relieved sigh. Nothing like a couple of near-death booby traps in a cave to make you really appreciate Celestia's gift to Equestria.
Daring basked in the sweet, sweet sunlight for another moment before taking a look around. It seemed that the mountain had carried her up a little further then she had thought – the top of the cliff was just at the top of the next incline, the tree's of the jungle hanging over the ledges overhead like a giant green awning. A cool breeze rolled up the cliff from below as Daring started her way up, Dying away as she finally made it to the top. She took a moment to look down to see how far she had come and almost immediately regretted it. She had been thinking of climbing that without wings? “Good thing I had a better idea.” Well, a much as deathtraps could count as 'better'. She'd take what she could get though at this point.
Now that she was out of the cenote, she could get back to business. She looked out across the massive natural pit, spotting her target about half-way around from her current spot. The top of the staircase was surrounded by the remains of ceremonial structures, having long since crumbled to piles of rubble. Even at this distance, she could see some of her rival's detritus. She grinned. “Get ready, Ahuizotl. I'm coming to get you.”