Chapter 7
A Ruby Knight.
“Now Ms. Do, it’s time for you to die.” Dry Pages said through clenched teeth, his tongue wrapping around the trigger.
A million things raced through Daring’s mind as she starred down the cold iron barrel of the cutting edge pistol, a device farm-ponies used to keep predators away from their crops suddenly turned into a weapon of heinous murder. Escape plans, attack plans and plans that seemed to be just flights of fancy, somewhere in the mess of consciousness that was the instant after Dry Pages had declared her imminent demise and the time she took her next breath her entire life managed to fleet in front of her eyes. A defence mechanism searching all of her life, every memory at super speed to try and find some way to stop her death, some way to prevent the end from being meted out so suddenly in this dark and ancient tome.
And it did.
In the form of a massive, howling dragon.
Just as Dry Pages was about to pull the trigger the dragon that had once been on the outside of the tomb crashed into the opening of the heavily trapped corridor that Daring and Dry had just passed through. The earth rattling force of the Wyrm rocked the temple and the two ponies hard, the bullet being released with a pitiful blast flying harmlessly against the roof and falling weakly to the cavern bellow.
Daring was rather sure that Dry was experiencing the same sort of “whole life” experiences that she had been viewing just moments before. Neither had any time to think as the long necked lizard pushed its way brutally through trap after trap the arrows and spears and other sharp objects bouncing what Daring could only assume was bouncing harmlessly off its scales.
Then the wall of flames came.
Unknown to Daring, Dry had turned and fired off two more rounds of his gun at the dragon while it barrelled its way through the traps with fierce abandon; he looked like he was about to fire a third when the fire belched out from the beasts stomach, the dark and dank world that had once seemed so perfect in the shadows was now a mockery of light and heat as liquid flames pooled out towards the Pegasus and earth pony.
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A billow of smoke erupted behind the panting and sweat drenched Daring Do as she executed a masterful roll away from whatever crashing, shooting, falling, death imposing device had been her bane just moments before. Trapped now in a dark, dimly lit room, the roar of the trap behind her, Daring panted hard beneath the organic screech of what she had just avoided, what the trap was and how she had managed to outwit or outrun its mechanisms escaping her mind just as she tried her hardest to recall them. There was a fog, deep and primordial clogging her mind; fearing that the air in this old tomb may have been laced with poisons or diseases that the civilized world may have long since forgotten she lifted a foreleg to her lips. She breathed through the filter of her own coat hoping to protect herself as many intrusions as she could.
The room, yes she recalled the room now that her initial panic was behind her. Daring fluttered her wings absently and looked out into the darkness, five torches along the walls lit by embers that should have burned out centuries before kept alight only by the thick magic which seemed to loom over the place. The details of the room escaped her, annoyingly so for Daring felt the archaeological urge to map and document all around her; everything needed to be charted and preserved in its original shape or even the smallest piece of history may be lost.
Beneath the dimly light torches whose flames had long since left the world appeared six massive thrones each topped with an ancient archaic symbol that Daring had, through her research when she was a child, grown accustomed to translating. Laughter, Kindness, Generosity, Loyalty and Honesty. The five elements of harmony represented in those ancient symbols sat above the thrones as if casting their magical eye over the residents of the seats themselves.
With cautious hoof, still muffling her breath, Daring continued towards the dark thrones, her long black and gray tail swatting some of the dust that had fallen off of her flank. Within each of the thrones now appeared a skeleton for each, three female from the shape of the skulls and the unique bend in their legs which hung down as if still connected to a body that had persisted through time, the other two represented by male bones. Biting back the bile at these ponies forced to exist forever, their bodies seeming to never be reduced to the ash of life Daring took one more step forward and was halted by a sharp whisper.
“Daring….”
The voice teased at her, turning rapidly to follow the faintest whisper, so fast that her neck gave a sharp crack and snapped roughly with stinging pain that she had over time grown accustomed to. She followed the voice in circles faster and faster as its volume rose higher and higher the closer and faster she spun herself.
Suddenly she jerked herself still faced with a sixth massive throne, higher than the others that it faced her back to them now. High up, casting its light down upon the other five was the ever present eye the symbol for ‘Magic’. With all of her might Daring tried to break contact with that massive eye, the voice calling to her from bellow in the seat itself, all of her will focused just barely giving Daring the freedom to move her neck slightly.
Another skeleton, this one garbed in what was once brilliant and skin tight ruby armour lined with gold and fitted to every part of the body that a pony would need protecting for was sat upon the throne of magic. Daring swallowed a ball of spit that had been forming in the back of her throat and took a deep breath that she had been unaware of holding; hesitantly she took one step forward.
As if by some unholy force the skeleton pony leaped forward its armoured hooves biting into her shoulders violently. They lashed against her flesh and bone biting like the coldest ice she had ever felt, tearing away at her stamina as if to drain the very life from her soul. The jaws of the pony split wide and from within the hollow throat came the most vicious of sounds.
“DARING!”
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Daring blinked hard to consciousness breaking away from the dream, the room however looked the same as it had when she had slept, had looked the same when she barrelled through the doors, the massive portal closing behind her blocking off the smoke and the fire. It was the same as it had been then, the dim torches, the details hiding just out of her vision. The soft scent of must hung deeply in the tomb and Daring twitched in the soundless shade unsure what to do. In her dream a voice had called to her and she had moved forward, to find the skeleton pony with a voice, with movement and for just one moment Daring was genuinely afraid.
She remembered her mother, who’s namesake was the same as her own, so strong and wild with that Do look in her eye, untamed and ready to fall head first into the first thing she could come across. Daring remembered how fearless her mother always seemed with her brilliant ruby eyes and lush chocolate mane, laced slightly with pepper flowing freely wherever there was wind. The adventurer remembered her voice from when she was a little filly, before the compass marker on her flank had appeared.
“Mother, why are you never afraid?” Daring’s voice rang out in her ear.
“HA!” her mother laughed, that strong laugh laced with years and adventures that had filled Daring’s fantasies since she could understand them. “I’m always afraid little one.” She said her eyes shifting from the hard light filled ones to a dull and far off shadow, opposite of their regular brightness. For just one moment Daring could see her mother without her walls of adventure and courage, raw and afraid. “I just know that my next step requires me to surpass my fears child, you’ll understand one day. Having no fears does not make you strong; pushing through fear will do that.”
Daring gasped and shook her head clearing away the all too vivid memories of her mother long gone. It was in her bones and muscles now, tightening her throat and constricting her lungs. A good fear. Animalistic and pure, it was a fear of the dark-no a fear of what was in the dark hiding just out of view and in plain sight, the most primordial fear that Daring would ever know.
Fear was the wall, her mother had said so, and Daring had always believed it to be true; it was not in her to give in to fear. It had not been before and it would not be so now, she decided putting one hoof in front of the other approaching the centre of the room. The sound of her hoof clattering with the smooth stone floor caused an echoing CLOP that made Daring’s hair stand on edge, sound seemed unnatural in this place drenched as it was in decay and magic.
Before her was a large, circular room, behind her a small alcove to which the double doors she had dove through opened into separating the chamber from the outside. Centred in the circle was a massive throne, its back to the door the so that the occupant would be facing the far wall, its back and legs where made of thick oak, the rest reaching high up towards the ceiling but aside from the high quality wood Daring could determine no other detail or decoration upon it. Again her hooves clopped against the floor as she circled to the left slowly, staying close to the outer rim of the circle as best she could; violet eyes adjusting to the dim torchlight which radiated from five torches attached to the far wall, they seemed evenly space, their fires had long died down to nothing more than burning stubs but the light burned the eyes enough in the perpetual darkness to slow Daring’s already cautious approach. As she drew closer the shapes beneath the torches where revealed from the darkness to be five smaller chairs, much like the first in a more minute scale. Upon each was a skeleton.
The first was a unicorn whose bony form was garbed in a deeply coloured robe, the colour itself lost to the darkness. Above her was a large plaque which bore one of the same symbols from the golem that Daring had encountered at the opening of the tomb, a similar shade of purple was faintly visible on the faded star. Beside the first was an Earth Pony encased in steel plate with a dirty earth color to it, above was the green gem. Next to that was a Pegasus who’s brown clothing had remained in a state of perfection that could only be unnatural, across from this was another Earth Pony this one in robes like the Unicorn and further down in the last seat in the row of five was a Pegasus that bore the same sort of armour that the royal guards of Canterlot wore though the armour was made of metals long ancient and outdated. All five of these skeletons sat in a bizarre visage of permanence looking out into the throne that faced them.
Daring took a shaky breath and prepared herself to turn away from the five skeletons and face what in her mind she could already see. Turning slowly her eyes fell upon the brilliantly red Unicorn ensconced in the Armour of the Ruby Knight. There before her was the same image in her mind and once again Daring was drawn to the once infamous knight in all of its glory, Daring felt the same ethereal pull drag her close to the long dead pony who was sitting there unmoving for centuries and just as she got close enough to stare the skull in the eye there was a flicker of movement and a pulsing wave of magic.
“Daring, at last.” Spoke the skeleton.