Spear of the Windigos (Daring Do #2)

by BookeCypher

Chapter 1

Author's Note:

This chapter may be a little rough - our editing department is still clearing the pudding out of its offices.
- Booke Cypher

“This was a really bad idea!”

“Nopony said you had to come, Daring.” Zapapple yelled back to her lagging friend. The tan-coated pegasus was lagging behind Zapapple, and the pale blue earth pony couldn't help but smirk at Daring's sudden onset of regret. She really had brought this on herself.

“Hey! I was the one who tracked the book down.” Daring shouted over the rumbling of the worn sandstone structure around them like it was caught in an earthquake. Her greyscale mane whipped around her head as she ran, twisting about her as she craned her neck left and right as the dark wood bookcases that towered above them trembled as something further below rattled the entire structure, sending ancient scrolls and antique books tumbling down around their ears.

Zapapple glanced over her shoulder, strands of multi-chromatic mane drifting into her face as she ran, dark pink eyes seemed to glow in the odd subterranean twilight, Daring's similarly shaded eyes glaring dagger's into the earth pony's back. “Its not my fault you didn't think this out! I tried to warn you, you know.”

“At least tell me you know how to get out off here.” Daring grumbled as another towering shelf toppled over. Down below, the rumbling seemed to be growing more intense.

“Me? What about you.” Zapapple retorted as they skidded to a stop at an intersection just long enough for Zapapple to poke at the mark on Daring's flank. “You're the one with a compass for a cutie mark.”

“And your's is a sextant.” Daring replied as she glanced at the three directions they had to choose from.

“Fair point.” Zapapple studied the intersection for a moment before jabbing a hoof to her left. “This way.” Zapapple made it three steps before she felt a sharp tug on her tail. She turned just in time to see Daring dropping it from her mouth. “What n-” The rest of the sentence was cut off as the hallway to the left simply caved in in a cascade of stone and wood. The pair of them stared at it for a moment before Zapapple managed to say anything. “G-good catch, Daring.”

“Actually,” Daring gulped nervously. “I was just going to say that I think it's a right.”

“Oh” Was all Zapapple managed. For a moment, silence reigned. “We should probably get out of here.” Zapapple managed after a moment.

“Agreed.” Daring squeaked, still slightly pale as the pair tore down the right-hoof hall. “So,” Daring turned to her friend as they dashed around another corner. “Did you at least grab the book?”

Zapapple replied by simply flipping open her saddlebag and briefly pulling out a worn-looking journal before slipping it back into the bag. “Considering the whole place started caving it as soon as I grabbed it, we're lucky I didn't drop it!”

“Who booby traps a book?” Daring thought out loud as they dodged another collapsing.

“Maybe they're all really dangerous books?” Zapapple suggested.

“So the entire place is designed to collapse!?” Daring replied. “What sort of – gah!” Daring skidded to a halt with Zapapple a heartbeat behind as the two came to a precarious stop at the edge of a yawning chasm. Ahead of them, the space opened up into a wide underground cavern. “Where'd the bridge go!?”

Zapapple looked around for a moment before spotting the ruined remains of the bridge hanging uselessly on the other side of the chasm. “Seems the bridge faired as well as the rest of this place. Think you can fly us across?”

Behind them, a massive thunderous crash echoed from inside the archive, followed by a low rumbling that seemed to be steadily growing closer. “Look's like we're about to find out.” Daring's wings flared as she leapt into the air as much as the confined space would allow before hooking her legs around Zapapple and darting out over the chasm with a beat of her wings.

Zapapple for her part had just enough time to let out a small yelp of surprise at her friend' legs wrapping around her torso before suddenly finding herself suspended far, far, far higher in the air then earth ponies were ever supposed to find themselves. Not many earth ponies ever found themselves in aeronautical roles, despite the proliferation of airships and the like. There was a good reason for this.

As Zapapple found herself temporarily struck wordless by a combination of vertigo and sheer terror, Daring was having issues of her own. Unaccustomed to the weight or dynamics of carrying another pony, the young pegasus found her flight performance had taken a significant hit with the addition of one – though Daring would never say it out loud – fairly hefty earth pony. Zapapple it would simply claim that it was because earth ponies were made of sterner stuff then light-as-feather's pegasi, but it didn't change the fact that at the moment Zapapple weighed a moon-cursed ton.

There was a brief moment when Daring thought she might have actually had it under control, but as was seeming to become a pattern the old archive seemed to have other plans. A massive plume of dust and debris shot out of the hall behind them, a gust of wind created by the air displaced by the collapsing archive following the path of least resistance as quickly as possible.

The gust crashed into Daring from behind like a small freight train and nearly sent her tumbling out of the air. Daring managed to stay airborne, just barely, as she found herself tumbling head over tail that in a way that was likely not helping Zapapple's vertigo. Daring's twisted her body and her wings, attempting to garner some control over their destabilized flight path as the gust seemed to be trying its best to drive them into the cliff face ahead of them, and Daring found herself fighting just to stay level. With one final twist of her wings, the pair was back over solid ground, crashing into the far ledge just above where the former rope bridge was still dangling from. The pair tumbled dozen meters before coming to a final stop in a tangle of limbs and a collection of pained moans.

Zapapple pulled herself out from under one of Daring's unfurled wings and shakily got onto all four hooves. “O-Okay,” She managed. “That sucked.”

Daring didn't even bother righting herself, staying splayed out on her back. “Agreed. Anything broken?”

Zapapple did a quick inventory. “Four legs, four hooves and a tail intact – you?”

Daring finally rolled onto her hooves, flexing each wing momentarily before furling them. “A few bruises but I think that's it.”

“A few bruises and one throughly trashed set of ruins.” Zapapple pointed out. “I hope you're right about that book.”

“My research was flawless.” Daring defended as she sorted out a few errant feathers. “Everything leading into those secure archives matched the school records and the archived journal entries. Besides, it was on a big pedestal – the important stuff is always on a big pedestal right?”
Zapapple sighed. “You've been reading your fathers old journals again, haven't you?”

Daring laughed sheepishly. “Maybe a little?” Zapapple just glared at her friend and after a moment Daring started to glare back. “Oh come on! Where else was I supposed to do research for going into an actual abandoned ruin? Those journals are the only one's I know are accurate!”

“You really think those are going to be-” Zapapple was cut off as another tremble tore through the building, passing after a moment and leaving Daring and Zapapple to realize that they were now clinging to each other as they nervously eyed the walls. “So,” Zapapple started as she turned her gaze to Daring. “Talk about this later?”

Daring nodded quickly. “Agreed.” The two, somewhat awkwardly, separated and started down the roughly-cut path, following the torches toward the tunnel that had brought them down in the first place. “So, that library didn't start this far down right?”

“I imagine not.” Zapapple replied as she peered about in the near pitch darkness. “Probably sank over the years – build stone building like that weighs quite a bit and with the ground around here being what it is...”

“Okay then.” Daring continued. “So – who built this tunnel?”

Zapapple opened her mouth, but after a moment closed it again as she suddenly came to a stop. “Thats...It was...uh...” She scratched at her mane. “That's actually a good question.”

Daring stopped and spun around to face her friend. “You mean you don't know!?”

“You're the one that did the research!” Zapapple retorted. “You tell me!”

“Well, my first thought was they were part of the catacombs.” Daring explained as she took a seat on the ground. “Canterlot is an old city, and it's seen its share of cataclysms and expansions. The Canterlot cliffs are crisscrossed with drainage tunnels, cisterns, escape paths, and all sorts of gem mines of varying levels of legality. Given the geology of the area, it seemed probable that the archive had been built on a softer substrate then much of the surrounding geology – when gravity and time took its toll, the archive sank and intersected the older tunnels.”

“So the tunnels were already here,” Zapapple summarized. “And the library just landed in the middle of them. Doesn't explain the bridge.”

“Exactly!” Daring replied excitedly. “Or the torch mountings along the wall. Somepony had been down here before. Probably poking around the archive looking for something.”

“Who do you think it was?” Zapapple wondered out loud.

“No idea!” Daring chirped happily. “There was nothing about in my research. I was thinking we were going to have to try that flying trick a lot sooner.”

“Huh.” Zapapple shrugged before starting back along the narrow path. “Thought you seemed a little too ready to grab me like that.”
“I've been practicing.” Daring replied, jumping back onto her hooves to follow after her friend. “The library had several books with flight exercises in them – A good chunk of the physiology section, actually.”

“You always find the answer in a book, don't you Daring?” Zapapple chided, but the small smirk was proof enough that there was no venom behind it.

“No reason to relearn something somepony has already figured out.” Daring defended with a shrug. “Passing on knowledge is the hallmark of society.”

“I still prefer learning things myself.” Zapapple replied. “Though I will admit this is a lot faster.”

“Never doubt the power of solid research.” Daring said. “Now, its just back up the....stairs.” Daring's voice trailed off as the got within sight of the staircase. The formerly rough but structurally sound arch the marked the bottom of the winding flight of steps had been reduced to a over-sized pile of rubble and dust. “...uh oh.”

“Oh, don't be such a pansy.” Zapapple rolled her eyes as she saw Daring begin to pale slightly. “It's not like we're trapped down here. We've just got to dig it out.”

“What if the entire staircase has caved-in?” Daring asked nervously as she watched Zapapple prod at the pile. “Or if its still unstable?”

“Well, you said that their were other tunnels, right?” Zapapple answered. “We'll just have to find one of those and follow it back to the surface. Piece of pie.”

“Zapapple, the tunnel networks down here stretch for leagues!” Daring waved her hoof at the cavern around her. “Who know's how long we could be wandering around down here. There was this one story, a few years back, about somepony they had found in one of the tunnels while digging out a apple cellar.” Daring shifted around nervously on her hooves as she glanced around at the shadows. “Turned out that the pony had been a shop owner twelve blocks over. The last time somepony had seen him was when a sinkhole in his plumbing stores basement had swallowed him up – eleven years ago!”

Zapapple put a hoof on her friends shoulder. “Daring – calm down. You're getting hysterical.”

“How is this hysterical?” Daring questioned. “Hysterics would be more...panicky.”

“For you?” Zapapple patted her friend on the shoulder. “This is hysterical. Now come on and help me clear this out so we can get out of here.”
Daring took a moment to take a deep breath before following Zapapple toward the pile. “Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you if this doesn't work.”

“Noted.” Zapapple replied dryly. “Start with the top ones – that way we don't drop the whole pile on us.”

“No kidding.” Daring took wing, quickly moving toward the top that was well beyond Zapapples reach. From above, the rockfall was even more impressive. The arch had been a surprisingly large piece of stonework and if Daring had to make a guess that quake had taken out the key stone. Gravity had taken care of the rest. “You actually expect us to clear all of this?”

“Just enough to make a hole.” Zapapple replied as she gave one of the larger boulders near the base a solid kick. The stone cracked and fractured into a flurry of smaller pieces that gave way under the weight of the stone on top of them.

“I thought you said we were starting from the top!” Daring shouted from above as she watched the entire pile shift.

“Yeah, well.” Zapapple muttered. “I don't have your wings and I don't fancy trying to climb this thing. Keep taking stones off the top. Less things to land on me if things go pear shaped that way.”

Daring rolled her eyes but complied, and began shuttling stones from the top to a quickly growing pile off to the side. She grudgingly noted that the stones Zapapple were adding tended to be a lot larger then Daring's. Earth pony's and that insane level of strength – still, Daring didn't think she'd trade her wings for the ability to bench press Canterlot. She had the feeling Zapapple was of a similar opinion regarding her own abilities.

“This stinks.” Daring managed after around twenty minutes of working at the pile, and they had made little obvious progress. Her wings were killing her, and if she had been wearing anything she was sure it would be drenched in the sweat that was making her coat slick. She was glad she had ditched her saddlebags. Zapapple was in what looked like a similar state of dishevelment.

“You want to go get lost looking for a different way up,” Zapapple grinned as she panted. “Be my guest. How long did you say that guy had been down here?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Daring sulked back to the top of the pile, grabbing another stone with hooves that were well past aching. If this was what field work was like, it was a bigger pain in the flank then she had thought. Daring was too absorbed in her own internal complaints to notice her grip on the stone failing until it was too late. “heads up!” Daring shouted as the rock crashed into the top of the pile, knocking loose several other stones. Within moment, the chain reaction had turned the single falling rock into a minor rock slide that had Zapapple scrambling out of the way. The heavy cracks and crashes of stone meeting stone echoed around the cavern until, finally, the rocks settled back down and after a moment the sounds subsided.

Zapapple glared up at her flying friend, who at least had the good grace to looking mildly embarrassed. “hehe – oops?”

Zapapple shook her head slowly. “Forget it – still in one piece at least. And it looks like your little slip might have done us a favor.” She started clearing out a few loose stones that were still hanging around the opening as Daring descended back to ground level. “Thats the second cave-in you've caused today. How yoy got promoted to the Equinology Department, I have no idea.”

“Hey!” Daring defended. “Its not my fault the book was booby-trapped. Why booby trap it after putting it behind that many locks?”

“Well, we got past them, didn't we?” Zapapple replied a she shoved another stone out of the way. “Still wish you would let me read the thing – we don't even know if its the right book.”

“The book is anywhere from five hundred to nearly fifteen hundred years old.” Daring pointed out. “If it is the journal, then it dates to the initial founding of Equestria – the pages would probably turn to dust if we looked at them funny.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Zapapple grumbled. “Let's just get out of here before something shows up.”

Daring suddenly looked a lot more nervous. “You, uh, actually think something might be down here?”

“Something made that bridge.” the earth pony replied as she shifted one final stone out of the way. “Ah – there we go.”

Daring poked her head around Zapapple and peered into the space beyond. “Well, at least the stairwell looks safe.”

Zapapple groaned. “Don't say stuff like that. You'll jinx it.”

“Fairly sure reality doesn't work like that.” Daring pointed out.”

“The sun and moon are moved around by a pair of princesses and there's a honest-to-Celestia lord of chaos petrified and sitting in the royal gardens.” Zapapple pointed out. “And do you remember what you said before you grabbed that book?”
Daring stopped for a moment. “...point. After you?”

“Not a chance.” Zapapple gave her friend a little push. “Your jinx, your problem.”

Daring grumbled something under her breath but started crawling through the narrow gap anyway. Despite Zapapple's work, it was still a tight squeeze as Daring tried not to think about what would happen to her if another cave-in happened while she was still crawling through the space. Daring repressed a small shudder as the phrase 'flat as a pancake' came unbidden to her mind. After a few minutes of twisting, squirming and a couple of tight squeezes that felt like they were going to cost her a wing or two, Daring finally found worked herself free and dropped into the inky black of the staircase. “Okay – I'm through!”

“Anything unpleasant?” Zapapple shouted through the crawlspace, her voice echoing oddly.

“No,” Daring replied. “It's just...dark. Torches must have gone out in the tremor.”

“Try and see if you can light them while I get through.” Zapapple replied. Daring pulled out a box of matches as Zapapple started pulling her way through, punctuating the darkness intermittently with unmare like grunts while Daring fumbled in the darkness trying to light the first torch. It was actually harder with the match lit then without it, since her eyes quickly adjusted to the glow of the match and left everything beyond that little sphere of light indistinct black shapes. Daring waved a hoof around blindly until she finally felt the rough stone of the walls, then she just had to follow it uphill until she stumbled across the first of the torches. Once she had the first one lit, it was decidedly easier to find the second one.

She had just finished lighting a third torch when a string of curses began to echo from the small tunnel. “Daring.” Zapapple finally announced after she had ran out of explicatives. “I think I've got a problem.”

“Are you stuck?” Daring asked as she approached the small opening. From inside, Zapapple's voice echoed back.

“Seem's like it.” A sigh carried up the tunnel from the trapped earth pony. “Mind giving me a tug?”

“Uh, okay.” Daring started to crawl back down the tunnel until she had half of herself through the opening and found her friend. She wasted little time in grabbing onto a hoof and giving a tug. “A little help would be nice.”

“I am helping!” Zapapple replied. “You try getting proper leverage when you can't see what you're pushing against.”

“Well, this isn't working!” Daring answered back. It felt like pulling on lead weight - A lead weight tied to the ground.

“Well, you're a pegasus, aren't you?” Zapapple replied. “Put some wing power into it!”

“I don't have enough clearance in...” Daring started, but she let the sentence trail off as an idea struck her. “Hold on.” Daring crawled back out of the tunnel, rushing back over to discarded saddlebag and began digging through them. A few moments later, Zapapple felt a line of rope land on her face followed shortly by hearing Daring's shouting. “Hold onto that as tight as you can and, uh, try not to lose any teeth.”

Zapapple had just taken up the line in her teeth when the second half of the sentence processed. “Wht' tht mn?!” Zapapple tried to yell around the rope, but it was too late. Outside, Daring bit down on her end of the rope, flared her wings, and pulled.

For a brief moment, Zapapple thought that her teeth were about to be pulled out of her head. But then, before she could be separated from her molars, the stone's grip on her faltered and she found herself being yanked free. Without the resistance, both Daring and Zapapple found themselves reeling. “Okay,” Zapapple managed after she spat out her end of the rope. “That hurt.”

“Not as much as having an earth pony land on you.” Daring groaned from somewhere underneath Zapapple. “Do you mind getting your overbuilt rump off me?”

“Sorry!” Zapapple scrambled to get off her friend, but it was a task easier said then done, what with the rope they had been using having some how wrapped itself around the two of them. The resulting squirming and effort to disentangle limbs would have been hilarious if anypony had been around to actually watch it. But after much flailing about and undignified grunting until the two finally managed to free themselves.

“Okay.” Zapapple said as she laid across the stone floor on her back. “That hurt. Anything damaged?”

“I think I landed on my wing when you popped out of that tunnel.” Daring replied as she flexed her wings, cringing a little as she stretched them out and refurled them. “Don't think I actually broke anything though. I think I'm going to have a heck of a bump on my head by this afternoon. What about you?”

“Overbuilt, remember? I'm fine.” Zapapple grinned as she stretched, cringing as she stretched one of her hindlegs. “well, mostly fine. At least we can both still walk, right?”

“Hardly something worth getting excited over.” Daring replied. “Let's just get out of here already, okay? I'm really tired of this place trying to horribly maim me.”

“And you thought field work was no fun!” Zapapple gave Daring a rough pat on the shoulder as she past her and started up the stairs. Daring took a moment to regain her balance from the over-eager attempt at reassurance before following after her. “So,” Zapapple asked as they paused to light another torch. “Now what?”

“Now we get it to a lab.” Daring replied. “Then we can stabilize the paper and start the preservation process.” Daring did a little dance. “There some new reagents I want to try!”

“So old temples don't do anything for you but dripping potions over an old book gets you dancing around like a foal?” Zapapple quirked an eyebrow at her friend. “Sure you're in the right line of work?”

“Well, if I let grave-robbers like you do all the acquisitions,” Daring replied with a small smirk of her own, “I would never get anything back in one piece.”

“Lab rat's like you should just leave the real work to the big ponies.” Zapapple shot back as th pair of them fell into a familiar pattern of playful verbal fencing as they continued their way up the stone steps. As unusual as a game it might be, it proved to be an effective way to whittle away the time as they continued to wind their way upward until, finally, they found themselves facing a worn and rusting metal door that marked the end of their assent. Daring gave it a few tugs, but the door didn't budge. “Huh, that's weird. It can't be locked since we broke that off...”

“It's just jammed.” Zapapple replied as she pulled her friend back before turning around, facing away from the door and began to line up her hind legs. “Allow me.” The earth pony drove both of her hind hooves into the door, and the rusted metal gave off a cloud of dust as it gave a dull ring and swung open before crashing into the wall. Daring peered around at frame at the door as her friend smugly polished one hoof. The door itself was sporting a not inconsiderable dent centered at the point of impact. Daring was just glad that the door was still on its hinges after that sort of blow. “Uh, nice work Zap.”

“No problem.” Zapapple replied with a small shrug as the pair stepped over the shreshold into the room beyond. The only light in the space came from the lone oil lamp hanging from the wooden column in front of them and a series of dirt-encrusted windows set high in the stone walls, leaving the space lit in a dim orange. Long shadows snaked out from a myriad of piping sticking from the stone floor and ceiling, the soft sound of dripping water echoing from somewhere in the space. Crammed in between, sagging wooden shelves were stuffed full of worn and disused pieces of maintenance items – pipes, wrenches, sheet metal, and cans upon cans of paint. “So,” Zapapple asked as she started weaving her way around what might have been a water main. “Why did you know there was some sort of super-secret passage way down in storage?”

“I didn't” Daring replied, a few steps behind her friend. “But I found it when I was digging through some of the older school blueprints.”

“If its on the blueprints, why hasn't anypony else poked around down here?” Zapapple asked. Somewhere nearby in the maze of pipings a pressure valve tripped, and a low hiss of escaping steam echoed through the enclosed space.

“Other then whoever made that bridge?” Daring replied. “Well, it wasn't like the passage was marked on the blueprint as 'secret door hear' – though that would have made things a lot easier.” Daring hopped over a low pipe that snaked its way out and over the floor. “I actually missed it the first few times, but the outside and inside layouts didn't match up quite right in that spot.”

“So you're first thought was 'secret room'?” Zapapple replied. “Seems like sort of a leap...and how the hay do we get out of here?”

“Left once we reach that red water main.” Daring pointed with one hoof at something somewhere ahead before she continued. “And, actually, my first thought was 'secret room' – small chambers get boarded up and lost in old buildings like this all the time. When they resurvey the school to update the blueprints, they end up missing it.”

“Wait...” Zapapple paused and turned to Daring. “Lose a....room? You can do that? People actually lose rooms?”

“Oh, all the time.” Daring nodded. “Some scholars at the royal library speculate that anywhere from five to ten percent of the Royal Palace's floor-plan is occupied by lost rooms. The Princess has her architects go looking around for them every once and a while.”

“Why does the princess need help finding some rooms?” Zapapple asked as they found themselves detouring around a particularly dense knot of piping. “She would have been there when the rooms were still around right?”

“Apparently she forgot where they were.” Daring shrugged. “The castle is pretty big. Last year, they were expanding one of the pantries and they broke into what turned out to be an accounting annex! The entire space was stuffed from floor to ceiling with scrolls of census data from all the way back before the Discordian era. So much of what we know about that period is from anecdotes or second-hoof stories written down long after – now they can actually get an accurate idea of not only the population and income distribution, but also the economy of the period and even a better idea of the political landscape just after the princess's ascension. We might even learn about-”

“Daring, you're rambling again.” Zapapple interrupted. “Now, I'm sure thats all really fascinating, but can we get out of here first?”

“I told you,” Daring replied. “Just turn at the red....water....” Daring's sentence trailed off as she looked around and realized that the red water main she was speaking off was nowhere in sight. Nor was their anything she recognized. “Well, its not that big of a room, right?” Daring said, though she didn't sound convinced of herself. “We just keep going until we hit a wall and then follow it until we find the door.”

“How long do you think that will take us?” Zapapple asked.

“Umm....” Daring thought about it for a moment. “Maybe an hour? Or two?”

Zapapple resisted the urge to hoof up to her face and simply sighed. “Then let's get moving – lead on.” Zapapple stepped to one side to let Daring take point, and the tan pegasus took only a moment to get her bearings before leading them off to their right. Despite the numerous levers and valves around them, the spaces around them did not seem designed to allow ponies in very easily. The pair found them squeezing past and under pipes, water dripping from the joints and valves and onto their heads and backs. It was a haphazard space, with all the hallmarks of having been added onto year after year with no thought of how the new fitted with the old.

Luckily, however, the piping seemed to thin out once they reached a wall. They picked a direction at random, and after worming their way through more piping and taking three turns finally found the narrow staircase leading out of the sub-basement.

“Finally.” Zapapple sighed and started up the staircase. Compared to the trip to the subbasement the staircase out of it was refreshingly short, terminating at a worn green-painted door. “Lets get out of here already.” Zapapple hooked a hoof through the door pull and opened the way back out to daylight.

And found herself face to face with a very angry griffon.

Comments

[Pinklestia]

“Who booby traps a book?” Daring thought out loud as they dodged another collapsing.

This was way before Daring Do meet a certain pony crazy about books.

“The sun and moon are moved around by a pair of princesses and there's a honest-to-Celestia lord of chaos petrified and sitting in the royal gardens.” Zapapple pointed out. “And do you remember what you said before you grabbed that book?”
Daring stopped for a moment. “...point. After you?”

As this is a second edition it was edited to include Princess Luna even if it doesn't make sence by the year the story happens in.