//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: Daring Do and the Empire of the Dead 
// by CrackedInkWell 
//------------------------------//

Daring Do had expected another room or a hallway that was completely made out of stone like the rest of the catacombs. She expected even more piles of bones from the past thousand years. What neither Daring Do nor Crawl Space had expected to find was a tunnel big enough to fly in that was made out of metal.

“What do you suppose this place is?” Daring turned to Crawl Space.

“I’m not exactly sure myself Madame. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

At the end of the short hallway was an open door, this opened up to a huge room made out of solid gray. It was big enough and long enough that it could have fit an apartment building whole. As both Daring and Crawl walked into this room, they quickly realized that this room leads to dozens of hallways. Above each has a sign above, saying things like: “bibliothèque” Library, “salle à Manger” Dining Hall, “Coin montagne” Sleeping Area, “Chambres d'éducation” Education Rooms, “Théâtre de la Culture” Culture theater, and so on.

“It’s almost like a town,” Crawl Space thought aloud. “I tell you, in all my years of exploring the catacombs, I’ve never come across anything like this.”

At the end of the grand gray hall, on the floor was a flat piece of metal that seemed to be made out of bronze. With the help of Crawl Space’s horn, he flipped it over, leaning against the wall to find that it was actually a plaque.	



	Abri n ° 2 de Paris France. Achevé en l'année 2067 par l'architecte, Théophile Desrochers. Un placés construit pour préserver les cultures et les peuples de la France et de l'Europe est pour un avenir meilleur.



Crawl Space translated this to: “Shelter # 2 of Paris France. Completed in the year 2067 by the architect, Théophile Desrochers. A place built to preserve France's and Europe's cultures and peoples for a better future.”

“This place is a shelter, from what?” Daring asked. “In fact, this place doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. This kinda looks like something we would make, but look at this place, it looks like nopony’s been here for over a thousand years.”

“Perhaps we can investigate.” Crawl suggested. “What a minute! Daring, I think we’ve might have found ourselves a way out.”

“Huh, what do ya mean?”

“That plaque says it’s a shelter, which means it is a place to store ponies. And if it’s designed to store ponies, and by the looks of it, this place is made to last them a long time. But what if something happens and that they need to get out? Do you think it might have been foolish to have only one door?”

“I see what you’re saying, there’s another way out of here! Crawl Space, you’re a genius.”

And thus began the search for the exit. First, they began looking in the sleeping quarters only to be greeted by rooms and rooms of more bones. But there was something completely off about these bones though. In the remains of beds, all of the bones don’t seem to be that of ponies, or gryphons, or anything else that Daring has ever seen. These skeletons were slender, and the skulls were oddly shaped. The eye-sockets were smaller than most ponies, their teeth were flat up front and a little jagged in the back. And the rest of the skulls seemed to show that they had somewhat large brains once.

It was in the sleeping quarters and one that was marked a kind of hospital that most of these strange remains were found.

In other rooms, they found kitchens with food that has long since rotted away. In another room, they found underground greenhouses and farming areas in which they found bones of cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and chickens. They found an open vault in which they found objects ranging from paintings to musical instruments and, to their surprise, crown jewels and everything else in between. In a library, they found books that had titles that neither of them had ever heard of before; such as “The Great Gatsby”, “Les Miserable”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Lord of the Rings”, and so on. Amongst the library, they found a section in which the shelves had nothing but copies of musical pieces. It was here that Daring took one of the manuscripts from the shelves.

“What are you doing?” Crawl asked.

“I’m taking some evidence here, getting some proof that this place, whatever it is, does exist.”

“What does that one say?”

“I’m not exactly sure, it’s in Prench, can you read it?”

Crawl Space looked over at the manuscript, “I’m not sure if it’s even Prench. I've never heard of the name.”

“I’ll take it anyway,” Daring said, putting the manuscript into her saddlebags.

In one of the last few rooms they explored, they came across two skeletons; one was like the other strange creatures. But the other, however, was a unicorn. Or at least, a broken one with its’ horn broken off from the skull. Yet this wasn't the most surprising thing they found. On this broken unicorn, nearly all eaten away by the centuries, this unicorn had a cape and hat, made out of blue fabric with stars, and all around, there were jingle bells.

“Madame, am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

“No, Crawl Space, I think we've just found Star Swirl the Bearded. At least, what’s left of him.”