The Andravidan Temple
Hannah Hawes, Shop Assistant
The Andravidan Temple
Admiral Biscuit
One thing that can be said about Equestrian train service is that it can always get you close to where you want to go. The other thing that can be said for it is that you miss your Jeep Wrangler, which could have driven you right up to the doorstep. They say that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
“Hey, Daring?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you wear shoes?” You hadn't really paid attention to her hooves.
“Not normally. They're heck on my typewriter.”
“Shame.” You glance back down at the map. It's not very helpful—being until recently an undiscovered temple, that's hardly surprising. “Probably about time for another recon flight.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” She glances up and around, perhaps making sure that there aren't any curious sapients in the air within eyesight, and then takes off, kicking up a bunch of fallen leaves.
You've got nothing to do while you wait, so you lean against a tree trunk and just listen to the sounds of the forest which surrounds you. Lots of birds are chirping which is a good sign, and you don't hear distant drums.
Daring's up for maybe ten minutes before coming back in for a landing. “It's about three more miles, give or take.” She points a hoof off roughly north-northeast. “Here might be a good place to set up camp for the night. Or, if we don't mind walking a bit, the river's close enough to be convenient, and not so close that we're gonna be the target of anypony with a raft.”
“I'll admit, I'd rather get a look at this temple sooner rather than later,” you tell her.
“Bog standard. Not gonna see anything on the outside that's helpful.” She scuffs her hoof across the ground. “No obvious holes in the top, which is too bad. Aerial assaults are always the best, if you can.”
“I wouldn't know,” you say dryly. That's not entirely true; you rappelled into Kêr-Is.
“I suppose not. You think to pack a tent?”
“What kind of adventurer doesn't?” You slip out of your backpack and lean it up against a tree.
“I usually nap in branches,” she tells you. “Fewer predators that way.”
“You're in luck,” you tell her. “We humans might not have wings, but we've got tensile tree tents. More comfy than a branch, and it keeps the bugs out.” You glance up at the canopy of branches overhead. “How high do you figure?”
“As high as we can get, just in case of hydras. I'd hate to be right at mouth level.”
“Yeah, might as well make them work for dinner.” You pause for a second, considering. “Hey, are hydras singular or plural?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s like one body but a bunch of heads . . . so is it one hydra or is one hydra a hydras?”
“It’s just a hydra. The number of heads don’t factor into it. Sort of like Cerberus is one dog, not three.”
“Got it.” You reach into your bag and pull out your tent. “Hope you don’t mind flying the ratchet straps up and hooking them off.”
•••
The one problem with tensile tree tents—which are basically hammocks with hats—is that you'd better be really close friends with your tent-mate. Theoretically, if you really crank on the ratchet straps, you can have a flat bottom, but that assumes that the tent's low enough on the tree that there won't be any flex in the trunk. You're a good hundred feet up, and even the stoutest trees are quite bendy at that height.
Had it been another human sharing the tent with you, it might have been intolerable. With a pony, though, you actually don't mind the intimacy.
Daring's apparently okay with it, too. At first, she tried to be stand-offish. It was cute how hard she tried to stay curled up at arm's length before finally succumbing to gravity. That, and the comfort of your Thermarest.
Getting back out of the tree for your morning ablutions is not exactly a fun task, but you do manage eventually and after a quick breakfast—granola bars for you, and leaves for her—you're ready to storm the temple.
•••
It takes you about two more hours to get close enough to see the temple through the trees, and another hour after that to actually spot the main entrance. There's no sense in just rushing in without thinking; it's better to reconnoiter and get a good idea of the lay of the land. And whether or not there are guards.
The temple itself is across a gaping chasm. There's a rotten rope bridge which you study nervously.
“It doesn't look that bad,” Daring says.
“Easy for you to say; you've got wings.” You pluck at the cables, trying to get a sense of how strong the fibers are. They do feel reasonably strong. You're pretty sure that there were rope bridges in the Andes that lasted for thousands of years before they finally broke. “Nothing for it, I guess.”
You shrug off your backpack and let Daring ferry that across—there's no sense in carrying more weight than you have to.
The bridge is actually pretty decent. You test each of the footboards carefully but none of them wind up splitting under your feet, and the ropes hardly fray. You're feeling pretty confident about the bridge when an airship-sized shadow blots out the sun.
You glance up just in time to see a flaming arrow zip by.
“It's Dr. Caballeron,” Daring shouts, rather unnecessarily.
“He did get his hooves on an airship.” Now there's no time to test the boards, you take off in a dead run as more arrows thunk into the wood behind you.
Good thing none of them know how to lead. An arrow thwhacks down in the board right in front of you, immediately putting a lie to your words.
It feels like an eternity but it isn't any more than ten seconds before you're off the bridge and into the relative safety of the trees on the other side of the canyon. The best they can do now is annoy you; the foliage is too thick for any arrows to make it through with lethal force—and they can't see where you are, either.
“Wish I'd packed my bow,” you mutter. “Poke a few holes in his airship and give him something to think about.”
Daring ignores you—she’s got a vine in her mouth and is tugging across the path. It doesn't take you very long to figure out that she's setting a snare, so you help rig the trigger for her. Basic woodcraft, the kind you learned in Girl Scouts.
“They'll be in a bit of rush until they hit this,” Daring explains once you've got it set and covered with leaves. “Might catch somepony, might not. But after they find it, they're gonna go slower. Give us a head start.”
“We could probably crouch and ambush them.”
“If I knew the lay of the land better, I'd say that that was a good idea, but I don't. No idea how long it's going to take to get the Orrery of Antikythera, or if there's another way out of the temple. Maybe when we're inside we'll find a good spot to hide out, or maybe we can just rush in and grab it and get back out before he even knows what happens.”
“Or maybe we'll be trapped like rats in a cage,” you observe. “I don't like it.”
“Neither do I.” Daring tilts her head towards the temple. “But a mare’s gotta do what a mare’s gotta do. You coming?”
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No "Ka-Li-Ma! Ka-Li-Ma!" either
Remarks and Corrections:
> which could have driving right up to the doorstep.
I don't think that should be "driving".
> any more then ten seconds
any more [than] ten seconds
8896545
No "Ka-Li-Ma! Ka-Li-Ma!" either
Which is very much a good thing.
Your video reminds me of this video:
Corrections made; thank you!
8897205
Well, it's the same guy who brought us both of these series
explains
8897960
Correction made; thank you!
The price for weirdest deadpan reply goes to DD. Well done.
9042937
She's not wrong.
For some reason I thought 'hydra' was both. Like sheep.
Alternatively, hydrae, hydri, or maybe hydrapodes?
Oh Hannah, an experienced archaeologist-adventurer like yourself should know better than to even think something like that.