What's Under the Ground...

by Sorren

Epilogue

Daring took a slow sip of tea, trying not to spill the hot liquid. Her hoof jittered as the returned the cup to the table.

Sun shone down on her through the storefront window and she closed her eyes, enjoying its warmth.

“Your food will be ready in a moment, Miss Do,” the waiter said cheerfully.

Daring jumped and sent the cup skittering off the table. It hit the linoleum floor and shattered, sending a swash of brown liquid across the tile. “Don’t do that!” she scolded, taking a panicked breath.

The mare who had spoken hurried over and began to sweep up the broken porcelain. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

Daring looked around the diner at the many ponies situated there. Every one of them had their gaze fixed on her. It was quiet enough to hear a pin stop. “No,” she replied quietly. “Everything’s fine.”

The diner employee finished sweeping up the remnants of the shattered cup. “Would you like a new beverage?”

Daring shook her head slowly. “No.”

The waiter shot her a curious look and trotted away.

Daring propped her forehooves on the table and stared at the ring-stained wood. She didn’t like it; the color was too close to beige. She removed her hat and set it beside her and slowly, she removed the two items hanging around her neck. One was a golden medallion, the other a square silver case.

She set the two objects on the table in front of her and examined them. The talisman she had grabbed back in the… back there, gleamed brightly in the late morning sun. Molded on the front, was a peaceful-looking pegasus, lying on her belly, her head turned up towards the sun. Daring allowed herself a small smile.

A series of dark images ran through her mind and she grasped her head as a searing pain filled her skull. It passed as quickly as it had come leaving only with the dull irritation from her left wing. Daring looked back, just to make sure it was alright. Her wing was set and bandaged, and had been fitted in a sling. She would be able to fly again, eventually.

Daring turned her attention to the silver case. It was maybe only about half an inch thick. The other dimensions were four inches by two. A metal clasp held the two ends together. She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to open it. Her mind wandered away, gazing blankly at the smooth case.

She was back in the tunnels. A blue mare cowered in front of her. Gold, gold everywhere. Screams, anger, fear. Rocks. Running. A blue mare led her by a rope, pulling her towards the light. Light…

Daring thumped herself on the head with a hoof. She refocused on the small metal rectangle in front of her. With a readying breath, she undid the small clasp and slowly lifted one end. Her hoof brought it up to a ninety degree angle on the hinge. Gravity took over on the side she had lifted and it fell to the table with a faint clack.

An organized clutter of papers filled the inside of the case. Daring reached down and with her mouth, removed the top one. It was an archeologist’s degree. Rivers’ face could be seen on the front.

Martson, Rivers

Degree of archeological occupation.

Issued, June 19th 1967.

Daring couldn’t believe what she was reading. The document was over fifty years old. But the picture on the front was clearly Rivers. The mare smiled up from the yellowed piece of paper, young and happy. Pinned to the back of that was a picture of the blue mare in an embrace with a light blue filly, both smiling playfully at Daring from the paper.

“I’m so sorry,” Daring whispered.

She set the license aside and looked at what remained in the case. There was a folded piece of parchment, sealed at the edges. On the front it read.

'To my little Stream'

Daring set it aside. She would handle that one later. There was one more piece of parchment. Buried under a few folded papers on field notes, she found one last paper relevant.

'Daring'

Slowly, she unfolded the piece of parchment, heart rate inclined for reasons unknown.

'If you’re reading this, that means you made it out. But that also means I’m in pretty bad shape right about now. You were never supposed to come back. I did everything I could to get you to leave. Everything. You just had to be stubborn and make things difficult for both of us. But you’ve given us something else. Hope. We can stand up to it now. And although we were left here so long ago. We may just find a way out ourselves. Make sure you get that letter where it’s meant to go.'

Rivers

There was much smaller writing a little way below the inscribed name.

p.s. I really wish I’d met you in high school. We could have been something.

Daring re-read the letter another seven times. Finally, she folded the parchment back up and returned it to the case, along with the other contents.

She left the diner, procuring a glare from the waiter who had been making his way to her table with her food. This mess wasn’t wrapped up yet.

* * *

Daring stood on the walkway leading up to the small cottage. She had managed to fly here on her own. She furled her wings, wincing at the little twinge of pain in her mostly-healed wing.

She had read every microfilm in every library this side of Canterlot to find this place. Rivers didn’t have much for family ties. There were times when Daring had doubted that the mare had any records at all.

She took a deep breath and started up the narrow path, her hooves clopping lightly on the cobbled stone. She tried to ignore the menacing sound, instead, focusing on the flowers that filled the decorative yard. She reached the door and paused. What if this wasn’t the right place? This was her last lead.

Tentatively, Daring reached out a hoof and knocked three times. Waiting for the door, she examined the silver case hung around her neck. The chain was slightly longer than that of the golden medallion, so as the two never collided on her front. She never took the two decorations off, not even to sleep.

Daring had this silly thought she had conjured in her mind. She knew it was crazy but she couldn’t shake it. She felt as if the golden medallion of the explorer pegasus was her only anchor to the real world; and if she took it off she would find herself back in the tunnels. Ever since she had left the diner, she never took it off.

The door cracked open and a cautious face peeked out. The chain remained bolted as the mare examined Daring. “Who is it?” the mare asked in an elderly voice, raspy from lack of use.

“My name is Daring Do,” she replied. She peered through the cracked door at the mare. Not much could be seen other than her muzzle. Her coat, from what Daring could tell, was light-blue.

“What do you want?” she asked worriedly. “I don’t want to buy anything. Go away.”

The mare made to close the door but Daring stuck her hoof in the way. “Wait,” she said. “Is your name Cool Stream?”

The mare froze. Her eyes widened in shock and she pushed Daring’s hoof out of the way. The door slammed. “Wait!” Daring protested.

She heard the sound of the chain being undone and the door swung open a moment later. The light blue mare stood fully in the doorway. Her coat was wrinkled with age and her face sagged, lacking any smile lines. Her mane may have once been some other color; but now it was a dull gray. “How do you know my name?” she asked suspiciously.

Daring took a step forward. The mare moved in the doorway, as if protecting her domain. “I’ve spent a long time looking for you,” Daring stated.

The mare glared at Daring. “What do you want?”

She hesitated. This was it. “Do you know a mare named Rivers Martson?”

The old mare’s mouth opened but no sound came out. Instead, she nodded. She gulped heavily and took a deep breath. “She was my mother.”

Daring nodded. “I have something for you.” She snapped open the silver case around her neck and produced the folded piece of parchment left for the mare. She passed it to the old mare, who took it absently. “She… wanted you to have this.”

The mare read the name on the front. “This is her writing.” Her eyes began to tear up. “She left when I was just a filly. She left me.” The mare sat down hard and gazed at Daring. “Do you know how hard I looked for her!?” she sobbed. “My mother left me all alone! I had no father. One day, she just got up and left!”

Daring gazed into the mare’s deep blue eyes. Hurt shone deep within their depths. “She didn’t leave.”

The mare set the letter down and unfolded the parchment.

Daring couldn’t see the words the mare was reading; but they were having an effect on Rivers’ child. The mare blinked tears from her eyes that landed on the yellow parchment as she read.

After a moment, she looked up at Daring. “Thank you,” she said happily. “Thank you so much. Where did you find this?”

Daring was quiet for a long time; but the mare didn’t speak or press. Instead she sat patiently and observed as the pegasus became lost in her own thoughts. Finally, Daring came to. “Someplace… that I will never speak of again.”

There was a soft wisp of air and the surrounding world froze. The bees stopped buzzing, the birds no longer chirped. The blue form of Rivers materialized next to Daring.

Daring had no idea why, but she wasn’t surprised to see the mare. “You did it,” Rivers said cheerfully. This wasn’t the tired and worn Rivers she had met in the tunnels; her coat was a pretty blue and it shone magnificently in the sunlight. Her eyes sparkled with a mother’s joy that Daring had seen in the eyes of ponies before.

Daring nodded. “It was the least I could do. So you found your way out?”

The blue mare gave Daring a friendly nuzzle. “We all did.”

Daring returned the embrace. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Rivers gazed passionately at the elderly blue mare poised in the doorway, a light smile frozen on her face. “Trust me, I have.”

Rivers’ form began to fade and world around them returned to life once more. In a moment, the blue mare was gone, the only remnants of her existence, memories and a few pictures inside a metal case.

That reminded Daring. She removed the letter to her from Rivers from the case, then she removed the case from around her neck and passed it to the elderly mare. “This was hers,” Daring stated. “You should have it.”

The mare took it thankfully. “Would you like to come in? I have tea boiling,” she asked generously.

Daring shook her head. “No, there’s something I still need to do.”

“Well, good luck,” the old pony replied.

Daring made a bow of farewell and turned to leave. She stopped and turned back. “Oh, and one more thing,” she asked. “Do you know if there’s a place around here where I can buy explosives?”

Comments

[bahatumay]

Now THAT is closure.

[Basilisk]

A fine ending to a fine story.

[Shefira]

Oh goodness

Now that's what I call a heart-warming ending

[Kamylian]

Great story I haven't read too many Daring Do fics, but this one just capitvated me from the start. I thought it would just be a particularly dark adventure story, but then it suddenly went all psychological horror on me. Really well excecuted psychological horror at that.

[Sorren]

541156
541196
542671
543390

Hey, Thanks for all the positive feedback. I never expected this to be liked by almost everypony who read it. EqD actually approved it to be sent to the pre-readers. This is great.

[Scoo]

Awesome.

[Sorren]

618511 I'm glad you like it so far.

[Lucario247]

Oh. My. Bucking. Gawd!
This is my literal reaction to this story ( in order of occurance):
omygod! She's gone
sniff such a good letter
wait wat her ghost is...wat?
Waaaaaaaah!
lol dynamite
Seriously amazing job.

[Sorren]

618730 Thanks for reading. This was one of my favorite fics to write, even if it didn't get that much recognition.

[Lucario247]

618761
Why this fic has so little, well...popularity, is completely beyond me.

[The sad mare]

ha never finished this fic been sitting here for a while

[DustnRain]

Absolutely a wonderful story! I was kept on the edge of my seat pleading that Daring would 'Never Back Down' and give in to the insanity of the place! Keep up the good work! I will definitely read any of your future tales! Thanks again!

[Fire Soul]

This fic was absolutely astounding. Really, it was. So scary and equally heartwarming.

I weep for poor Rivers. She seems like she was such a nice mare, probably went into that temple figuring 'huh, I can check this place out and make lots of money, my foal can be set for life!', only to wind up leaving her alone and without any parents....truly a very sad fate.

The ending definitely has tons of closure, however. Knowing the ghosts found a way out, Daring Do can get herself as many explosives as possible and LEVEL that bucking temple! No more doomed souls for any of those evil spirits!

FIRE IT UP! FIRE IT UP! FIRE IT UP!!!

[Sorren]

1234226 You read this It's been a long time since anypony has read this. Thank you for that comment.

[Fire Soul]

1234271
It's a damn good fic, what can I say? I read damn good fics.

[Ezn]

Seattle's Angels pointed me here. It was an interesting read. I do enjoy a bit of surreal mindscrewy horror, and this managed to deliver on that and even have a happy ending that worked well with the rest.

I definitely feel that it was way overwritten though, especially the first half. Most paragraphs had at least one sentence that could have been struck completely and another that should have been compressed and integrated into the rest of the paragraph. I found myself skimming at points because of all the redundancies and explanations of obvious things.

I suppose it's a bit silly to offer critique on such an old story, though. I'm sure your newer writing's much better.

Anyway, thanks for writing this. It was an interesting read.

[Sorren]

1829799 Than you very much for the review. And as you stated, this is a very old story, I wrote it about nine months ago, and since then, yes, I have gotten a lot better.

Thanks again.

[Altair4]

It is criminal that this doesn't have more views, really well done horror, have a watch and a read of you're back catalogue.
For the record I like the slower build up and the pacing of the story

[Sypher]

I would have liked to see more development for Rivers. I suppose her ending would have had a greater impact on me emotionally if she weren't so cryptic and mystical. Nonetheless, the story was good.

[Sorren]

2809957 Thanks for the commentary. And yeah, thanks for pointing those errors out. I wrote this story quite some time ago, so there's bound to be all sorts of writing issues.

[NaughtSought]

That was great. not the best but it certainly was great.

[Sorren]

3194936 I know it's not the best

And thank you!

[NaughtSought]

3195500 I actually wrote a comment? I thought that was a hallucination from the story.

[The desert brony]

At the request of your blog I took the time to read this and I can say this is underrated. Despite how short it is, this story was written with the same passion as your other works. I hope one day you will write another one of these.

[Sorren]

3258621 Wow, thanks.

As for another fic like this. I should probably get some motivation for something of the sorts. I mean, I kinda wore out the tunnel aspects with this one, and I really do love tunnels. So I'm not quite sure.

[The desert brony]

3259374 I know about tunnels from my D&D days. As for your motivation I can only pray to Celestia that it happens. Good night

[Lucky Roll]

>that awkward feeling when you want to comment on a story and then realize it's more than a year and a half old

Well, who cares, I think authors love comments even if they're late to the idiomatic party. Before I'd indulge in my feedback, I should mention that as a genre, I'm not too keen on horror stories. In fact, I only checked out the story because I was leafing through the old "read later" folder on my ebook reader, and this fic was still marked as unread.

After reading it, I felt it was a really mixed bag: the story had many really strong points, but a few slides kept me from really enjoying it. Since my experiences of horror/adventure tales are pretty limited, I don't know how original this one was, but I think it was smart enough to keep the thrill up through the whole story, with ideas varied enough to keep the reader on their toe. These good (dare I say, clever) ideas were rarely carried through, however: although we do get a general answer at the end it does little to explain everything. Not that it's a bad thing, since as far as I know, in these kind of stories that's not only accepted, but outright desired - explaining the mystery kills it, as it were. As such, I don't question how did the maze keep rearranging itself, or what happened to Daring's map, but still, I would've been glad if you shed light on a few areas (e.g. what was the significance of sleeping? Was Rivers right about it in the end, or was it only a feverish obsession of hers?). I was also left wondering about how (and if) the maze was affected by how it was perceived - does imagining a door there make it real, for example? Since it was mentioned that the malevolent entity behind the temple fed off despair, these kind of mind games were possible, but I never really got an answer.

On a less cheerful note, I think the story has some problems with the whole "show vs tell" business. Since it was written more than a year and a half ago, I assume that by now, you probably recognizes this yourself, but still, I should mention that there was too many "Daring Do was terrified"-type sentence, and they really didn't do much for the atmosphere; Rivers' state (aka horrible starvation) was also pictured in a rather descriptive, detached manner, for example. I think you get my point.

Another somewhat similar, but still different point was the repetitive sentence structure. Look at the beginning:

"Many ponies had entered the temple, none of which had ever left. Local word was that it was cursed. This temple was different from the others. For starters, almost all of it was underground."

The short, simple, aloof, repetitive sentences makes the writing dull. It doesn't matter if the actual content of the words are (supposed to be) exciting; if it's presented in this manner, it's very hard for the reader to immense themselves into the suspense, and sadly, this problem persisted virtually all along the story, which is a pretty big problem for a dark story.

The characterization, however, was pretty good! I found myself attached to both Rivers and Daring, despite the fact that the former didn't show up too much. It was a rather neat twist what Daring did: I wouldn't expect the protagonist of a horror story to actually find the real escape from her situation, only to turn back and walk right back into the danger - to save someone she only knows for a day, and for whose loss, let's face it, she wasn't really responsible. Yet you pulled it off not only believably, but it was nearly heartwarming (guilt-tripping map for the win!). Yes, I actually felt that Daring returning "changed the rules": after this they deserve, if not to escape, but at least to die together, I thought. (By the way, at the boulder part after Daring's return, I briefly imagined about how darkly ironic it would've been if Rivers died being crushed by the boulder Daring set off to save her. Or what a cruel twist it would've been if it turned out she really was imaginary, and Daring went back risking her life and sanity for nothing.)

Now the fic left me with a few questions about Rivers, and I don't know if it was intended, or if I'm just too dump to add two and two together. Was she for real? I mean yes, we get to know her daughter, and she does give a case for Daring, but the Rivers we meet can't be the mother: Stream is much older than her. So, was she dead to begin with? Did she wander in long ago, died from starvation, and did Daring find her ghost? She did, however, eat and drink Daring's rations and was corporeal enough to guide and be guided by the rope. Was she some kind of zombie...?

On an other topic, I should mention that the sudden beginning of the story kind of surprised me. We have no preparations, no backstory, no nuthin', just a "here's a scary temple, Daring is going into it, apparently for no other reason than being Daring Do." It didn't really bother me, for the story was still enjoyable, and this kind of setting is pretty common in horror stories (as far as I know), just thought I should point out to it. I don't know, maybe an actual preamble would make the story worse so you were right to leave it out.

On a technical note, the editing was good. There was a few capitalization errors, missing words and whatnot, but only the minimal amount that sneaks in every fic. I should, however, mention a few... unfortunate word choices; for example the line "Rivers didn’t appear to be holding too well. She had gouged out her own eyes with a rib bone for Celestia’s sake." actually had me cracking up, since it could win any understatement competitions (and obviously, chortling at such a dramatic part pretty much destroyed the dramatic tension of the otherwise rather gruesome action). I could also mention comparing the howl of the mysterious entity to a cow's moo: that didn't help the cause, either.

Overall though I rather enjoyed the story, and gave it my thumbs up. May I ask if it made it to EqD? Judging by the amount of views, I'm guessing "no", but this little popularity really doesn't do justice to the fic, especially considering the effort that had gone into it.

[Sorren]

3451406 Wow, that comment... I love you.

To answer your last question first--no, it did not make EqD, I tried, but this story has many flaws, such as the ones you pointed out. This was only the third story I'd ever written and I kind of winged it as I went, then went back and glued pieces together. It was rather messy. But after some work I decided what I wanted done with it. I left the reader purposefully wondering if Rivers was ever a real entity, or simply a figment of Daring's mind as a side-effect from the insanity of the maze. One thing is for sure though--rivers died a long time before, and a connection was made down there in the tunnels. Now that you've left this comment, I am actually thinking of re-writing this with more detail in the beginning and fixing much of my issues with telly scenes. I know this is mediocre at best, but the story has potential.

[Lucky Roll]

3454291
Oh, thanks for clarifying the Rivers bit up! By the way, I don't know, but 'Marston' doesn't really sound like a pony name. I'm not one for splitting hairs, though, it's not like this is a real problem.

And yup, that was more or less exactly what I felt: the story truly has valuable potential, but there are a few flaws that hamper it. If you ever decide to re-write it, I wish for the best of luck to you!

Lastly, a P.S.: more horror story protagonists need to return to the scene of their tribulations with a gratuitous amount of explosives!

[Sorren]

3461737 I know, right?

It's not closure until you blow it up.

[Evilhumour]

Freakin' amazing.

[Cozy Mark IV]

That was an impressive piece of storytelling: I hope she tells Luna or Celestia about this place, they could use a good dungeon crawl : ).

[PaulAsaran]

You can has review!

[Matthewl419]

So that was like, wow man. You did a really good job on this, I really enjoyed it.

[Shadow_Wolf]

An amazing piece of work this

[1993 first gen astro]

I loved this especially the end it is kind of sad tho but I still loved it!