In this story, the young archaeologist pony Daring Do teams up with an expedition seeking the ancient ruins of Zenith- a temple wrapped in South Equestrian mythology that has never been seen in recorded history. Plans for the expeditions all go to pieces as another party seeking to find the ruins for their own reasons soon present themselves: The Gryphons.
Aggressive and militaristic, the Gryphons seek the ruins to show that their species ruled over the continent during early history, proving their species' superiority. The interaction between the ponies and the gryphons does not go well, and Daring is left on her own, alone in the jungle. Will she be able to get back to safety? Will she be able to rescue her captive comrades? Just what are the trials of Zenith? Find out in this thrilling tale.
If adventure has a mane, it must be.... DARING DO!
eesh, is this summer getting busy! Do not fear, folks! I plan to complete this story before the start of Season 3! Stay tuned for more Daring Do goodness in the future!
Oh my. We got us a story.
This is such an underrated story; this deserves much more attention!
I can almost hear the Venice chase music playing here. Thrilling action scene, no matter how short it may be. Loved it!
We have our Marcus Brody.
Sorry; I like drawing connections when I see them. >_>;
Haha, that moment on the boat. Reminds me of a favorite sequence.
"Those aren't birds, honey. They're giant vampire bats!"
Meanwhile, back at the Gryphon's main dig site...
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I am so glad that you are enjoying this story! I am currently working very hard on writing more for it, and I hope to make it complete before Season 3 begins.
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Both rational fears, Ms. Do. I assure you.
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Chapter 10 has been completed now, actually. I posted half of it originally, and now the rest is there. And yes, fear of snakes is understandable!
834878 Aha! The rest of the chapter is revealed! Thanks for letting me know.
This is great! Being a big Indiana Jones fan and all, it's cool to see you add that in.
Just one thing, though.
"When the other stallions tried the directest approach,"
It's just, "When the other stallions tried the most direct approach,"
835105 ah, thanks for that. That's what I get for writing in the morning!
Awesome action sequence, albeit a very short one.
I finished adding to this chapter, it is now fully compete! More will be on the way soon as this story approaches its epic climax!
Who does? Daring! Who dares? Do!
Short but still demonstrates your developed ability to carry out action scenes. Nice work.
947621 Thoughts on the story as a whole?
And what of Herr Gwindor? To shreds, you say? Tsk tsk tsk. Was his aerie rent controlled?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
This last chapter did seem a little on the short side, but the action sequences are nicely done, and the plot lines (mostly) get tied up neatly.
Overall, Geno Blast, this story is a very fun read. In fact, after I had seen that you completed it I reread it from the top. By reading this in chunks of two or three chapters at a crack, I got a much better feel for the flow of the story. Doing that also made the above gripe about chapter word counts shrivel to insignificance. Great stuff!
Why do I get the feeling that this is going to end up having a part two, and Gwindor is going to come back as some sort of unholy steampunk cross between a griffon and Kano from Mortal Combat?
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Haha, that wasn't my plan. However, there will be ties between this and my next story, as well as Daring Do and the Ivory Idol. This story takes place in 1934. Ivory Idol takes place in late 1936. The next story will take place in early 1937.
Scootaround from Ivory Idol will return, and will play a similar role. Other characters may or may not return, that remains to be seen.There will be new OCs as well.
Just remember this- Elise wasn't killed in this story....
Glad that people are liking this story! As usual, I will be doing more, and expect it to be even bigger and better!
Hmm... I don't know.
Through the whole second half of the story, I couldn't shake the feeling that the "real" adventure took place on the surface with Trenchoof and the gryphons, while Daring was stuck with the comparatively uninteresting trials, and her using some sort of walkthrough to guide her didn't really help matters. Also, the ending felt too short and rather anticlimactic to me.
Don't get me wrong, the story was still okay, but I do prefer "Ivory Idol". I'm still looking forward to your next story.
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Yes, EqD seemed to think the same thing. Maybe I ought to try something slightly different to refresh my writing style.
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Well, you know, what I'd like to see is a bit more world building and a little less dungeon crawling. I always prefer the scenes were Daring actually interacts with the characters and the story as a whole instead of the parts where it's basically just "Oh lookee, yet another room with another test of strenght/speed/wits."
But eh, you know, just a suggestion.
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I completely agree. I think I was trying to improve over Ivory Idol in this one, but I went in the wrong direction to try to improve it.
I think the fact that Daring went solo in this one also was a bad idea, as it lacked the inter-character interaction (ie Scootaround and Daring dynamic duo)
DEFINETELY bringing Scoots back for the next one. I'm also probably gonna wait until it's mostly done until posting it. Stretching things out the way I did with TOZ didn't help IMO.