Daring Do and the Secret of the Sunken City

by 8686

16: At Journey's End

The water was divine!

Twilight heated it to just the right temperature, and as Daring felt herself utterly relax, every knot in every muscle seemed to unwind and she felt herself go limp as jelly. From the satisfied little moans next to and opposite her, it sounded like Rainbow and Twilight were having a similar experience.

Why hadn’t she done this sooner?

They relaxed in the plunge-pool at the base of the waterfall in the same clearing that had served as their encampment once already on this adventure. The full moon beamed down on them from high overhead, and the gentle relaxing noise of the waterfall soothed their stresses away. They were safe, concealed in the forest shadows, the danger of the city far behind them, and lost to Caballeron and any hope of pursuit.

“So... the Jewel of Unity then? And the other crown had the Jewel of Harmony in it, right?” asked Rainbow, lying back against the side of the pool, head resting against the grass as she looked up at the liquorice sky dotted with tiny sugar-speck stars. “And the King’s wife took Harmony and buried it somewhere in what’s now Equestria. And her journal made it into the library of the Castle of the Two Sisters where Caballeron found it.”

“From what we know, that sounds about right...” said Daring, quirking an eyebrow.

“So, do you think if we buried the jewel we have, like, in a thousand years we’d get a Tree of Unity, with Elements of Unity and everything?”

“Tree of what?” asked Daring. “What in Celestia’s name are you talking about?”

“Uh... we’ll fill you in later,” said Twilight with a smile. “But you have to keep it a secret, okay?”

Daring relaxed again and smiled, resting her own head against the side of the pool, the grass tickling the back of her neck. “No problem. Uh... cross my heart and... hope to... ugh, forget it. I promise.”

Twilight chuckled behind a hoof, and Daring’s smile grew. This was all just... nice. Being here. With friends. At the end of another exciting adventure. Couldn’t think of anything better. Not even if she were by herself.

“It’s a shame we can’t read that journal Caballeron found,” said Rainbow. “Probably had all kinds of other secret stuff in there.”

“Can’t we?” Daring’s smile turned into a grin and she closed her eyes. Then they snapped open, as the full extent of what she’d done hit her. She raised her head and looked sincerely at the pegasus. “Rainbow Dash... I’m sorry, okay. I... I had no right. Not without asking you. But if you’re serious about it, I’ll help you re-do it. Make it better. You have my word.”

Rainbow Dash looked all sorts of confused. “What are you talking about?”

Daring took a breath. Confession time...

* * *

Caballeron woke to the sound of jack-hammered pounding of hooves on wood. Initially dizzy he quickly located the source of the commotion. The hatch to the lower deck was closed and locked, and Daring Do was nowhere to be seen. Oddly, the key to the padlock was in his pocket. Yet he was sure he had dropped it.

Opening the hatch he found his four henchponies looking various shades of surprised and annoyed. They didn’t even need to speak. It was obvious what had happened.

“I am going to lie down,” he grumbled, forestalling their attempts at explanation. He trotted down the stairs, forcing the four ponies in his employ to stand aside.

“Boss, where do you want us to head for? Are we going after her?”

“No,” he sighed, exasperated. There was no point and he had had enough for one day. “Get us to Maresachusettes. I wish to be rid of this flimsy collection of matchwood and string before it falls apart.” Then he turned away. With a weary gait he staggered along the lower deck where, at the rear, a small cabin served as his quarters, and entered.

Against the wall, his set of saddlebags rested and seeing them perked his ears and gave him a wicked little smile. Daring Do may have escaped with that gem along with those two strangely nondescript mystery-ponies, but he had at least managed to retain one treasure for himself. The ancient journal Daring had found beneath the city. Married to the one he had taken from the ruins of that ancient castle they formed the only known writings of the ancient civilisation. They would fetch a handsome price and his eyes lit up as he began to imagine all of the potential buyers he knew. And there were many who would bid against each other for such a set.

He opened the saddlebag and retrieved the pair of volumes now, their similar green dust-jacket covers proudly displaying the two-headed unicorn motif that was the symbol of the city.

His smile widened further and he put one down, keeping hold of the one he recognised as the one Daring had discovered. Written firsthoof by an ancient monarch chronicling the downfall of his city. His curiosity piqued. He couldn’t very well sell it without knowing exactly what it contained after all. He flipped the cover open and began to read...

Colour Sprinter was the awesomest flier in Equestria. Trust me, I know about these things.

What the—? He closed the book and removed the dust-jacket to reveal that this was not the journal he had taken! It was a joke novel apparently written by a pony he had never even heard of! He clenched his teeth so hard that they hurt, turned his head to the ceiling and roared. “DARING DO! I WILL GET YOU FOR THIS!”

Yet after a moment his anger subsided and he looked at the book in his hooves. Oddly, his smile returned. “Well... there is always next time.”

* * *

“You switched the books?!” blurted Rainbow in surprise.

“When we got back to the platform after you’d gone spelunking in my brain,” said Daring. “Just swapped the dust jackets over so they’d look similar at a glance and presto. I knew he’d be too arrogant to check them closely.” She noticed she was getting an oddly reproachful look from Twilight. “What?” she asked innocently.

“Well... I guess I feel a little sorry for him. For all his bluster and attitude, he did put a lot of work into finding the city. It feels wrong that he’s left with nothing to show for it.”

“Hey, I gave him my book too,” argued Daring. “There are enough notes in Failed Expedition that, if he were serious about it, he could write a whole paper on that city. A thoroughly-researched, well-thought-out, insightful and definitive piece covering one of the oldest genuine metropolises known to have existed. A subject so fascinating that a famous author might just use that paper as the inspiration for the next installment of an action-adventure series about a globe-trotting explorer. If he were willing to put the effort in for once, he could get as much out of this as he wanted, and earn himself some major academic kudos in the process. What’s the betting we hear no more about it, though?” She shook her head. “Don’t feel too sorry for him. He still gets royalties off my work without having to lift a hoof. He’s not exactly gonna starve.”

She rested her head again and there was a quiet, comfortable lull in the conversation.

After a couple of minutes the water stopped bubbling and Daring noticed that the oh-so-subtle musical thrum of Twilight’s magical aura had fallen silent. “You okay?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m fine. But it’s quite a lot of effort to keep the water at this temperature for so long. I just need a minute to, uh, stretch, I guess.”

“So what’s the deal with this anyway?” asked Dash. “Did we get all our magic or abilities or whatever back? I mean, we can all fly again, right? Are we, like, up to full power now? Does it even work like that?”

“I’m not sure, exactly,” said Twilight. “If I had to theorise, I’d still say that the explosion scattered our magic throughout the city like tiny particles. Once it was released we started to absorb it again. We became like magnets, and our individual magical energies were like iron filings. All the time we were escaping the city our magic was being drawn to us, but we were a little too preoccupied to notice, what with everything falling apart...”

“—and you getting brained.” added Rainbow Dash.

“As for now? Well, I feel back to normal. Any deficiency we might be suffering from not getting every last scrap back will likely only take a day or two for our bodies to compensate for.” Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash, who was offering her a face that was at once confused at half of the words she’d just heard, and annoyed that Twilight was deliberately being obtuse by saying them. Twilight offered her own impatient-yet-resigned frown in exchange. “The short version is you’re going to be fine for your Wonderbolt show,” she grumbled.

“You could’ve just said that,” said Dash, rolling her eyes.

Daring relaxed again. Somehow the sound of the playful bickering was more of a comfort even than the silence. As the sounds of her friends’ voices drifted to her ears, she found her mind wandering. She recounted the journey she had been on to get here. From her home, to Ponyville, to the destruction of an ancient city, and a few minor details in between. Shadow-scorpions, sky-monsters, two-pony death-traps, ancient magical artifacts of enormous power and significance, a returning villain to contend with... there was so much. This was going to be an epic book. She smiled.

“There’s still one thing I don’t get,” said Rainbow.

“Only one?” said Twilight with a perfectly-weighted touch of jovial cynicism that Rainbow Dash utterly missed.

“That crystal that took our abilities away. You saw it, right? Those five ribbons of energy? Well? One, Two, Three...?” she said, pointing out the three of them.

“It’s fairly obvious. The other two strands of energy were those of the ancient Kings. Whatever else happened to them, without both crowns they never had the means to recover their magic from the stone. It was trapped inside all this time.”

Daring felt a frown form and she raised her head, looking at Twilight, thinking hard.

“What?” Twilight asked, noticing her countenance and looking back in confusion. Rainbow gave her a similar look too, but once again she had come up with the important question. That pegasus really was pretty astute, even if not in a book-smart kind of way.

“Well... you said it yourself,” Daring said to Twilight. “Magic can’t just disappear. So what happens to it now? The combined magical energy of two powerful monarchs is just sitting in that valley. Swirling around an ancient, flooded city. A place that bred and festered in mistrust and paranoia so deep that it eventually tore itself apart. A city where pony turned against pony, brother against brother, all because of fear, loss, and hatred. And a city that was eventually destroyed because we as ponies couldn’t play nice and share. Imagine all that negativity. Centuries of it, capped with a seismic event born of our own hostility. What do you think all that raw, pent-up emotion would do to that magic?” Twilight looked flummoxed and confused, prompting Daring to add, “That’s not a rhetorical question, I’m genuinely asking.”

“I’m not sure. But I really wouldn’t worry about it,” said Twilight. “It’s not as if their magic is going to come to life or anything. If I had to theorise, I’d say the only lasting effect would be a slight increase in background thaumic energy within the valley for a while. That’s all.”

“Twilight?” said Rainbow.

“What?”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Being all egghead.”

“Well excuse me for trying to share some opinions on never-before observed magical phenomena!”

“Just make the water bubbly again,” said Rainbow, stretching her neck and relaxing back. “I like it when you make the water bubbly.”

Twilight groaned. Daring smiled.

Those two...

She really liked those two.

* * *

Far to the Northeast, just within the borders of modern-day Equestria, there lie the Mustang Mountains. A low, sweeping and snow-capped ring of peaks, dominated by the twin summits of Brokeback Mountain overlooking a secluded but massive lake.

It covers the entire valley floor, but here and there, in just a few places, the surface is broken by what look like stone ruins. Surely it is but an illusion, for there are no records of any civilisation ever having settled in this remote land, and thus no construction should exist. And yet, even on closer inspection, they do look like the spires and steeples of tall, ancient buildings.

Chill winds from the mountains often funnel into the valley and whip the lake into a swirling, churning foam. The water cannot seem to settle, as though just beneath its surface, large solid objects impede its natural flow.

Wwwwiiiiiiiinnnnnnn...

Off-centre, east of the middle of the valley-spanning lake, there is a roughly circular patch of calmer water. On the darkest of nights, and more noticeable with the New Moon, the centre of this wide area seems to luminesce with a pearl, milky light that pulses oh-so-faintly.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

In the dead of winter, when the nights lengthen and the weather is at its coldest, the light seems to brighten, coalescing and consolidating towards the centre of the placid water. It is a subtle thing, but each passing night seems to yield a slightly stronger glow from the depths of the murk.

Ggggoooooooooooo.

It was said that there was once a great city nestling within the valley. Legends told of a city of incredible beauty and majesty. A city of prosperity and opportunity. A proud city that, at one time, was the envy of every other civilisation in the land of the Ponies.

A city that turned on itself. A city that imploded in a cataclysm of mistrust and betrayal.

Wiiinnnndeeeeeegoooo...

A city destroyed by hatred.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

And then a swarm of shadow scorpions killed them all in their sleep. The end.

[fractalman]

Looks like we need an early Hearthswarming celebration.

[StarzGecko]

I guess Windgoes found a home now. Awesome story!

[Circut Breaker]

GODDAMMIT

[DrD1msum]

THAT ENDING WAS AMAZING!! CREEPED ME OUT!

[DrD1msum]

I'm crying.

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

Creepy ending. That trick Daring pulled was amusing.