Case Ten, Chapter Three: Nightmare Moon's Temple
Daring leaned out the back window of Prowl and Bumblebee’s cruiser, blowing smoke from her cigarette into the air. The rain was lessening, going from a downpour to a mild sprinkle, but the retreating clouds were still filtering out what little sunlight was left. She took another drag on the cigarette and closed her eyes, listening to the news broadcast over the radio.
“—spite of the recent accusations levied against her by an unidentified source, rumored to be the stallion who attempted to assassinate Mayor Mare, Scarlet Letter promised that a sequel to her bestseller would be coming soon, and Ponyville book stores would have first pick,” the anchor read off. The mention of the name prompted a bubbling of acid in Daring’s stomach, but she swallowed it back with a scowl.
“In other news, the failing North Star Capital Management company, formerly known as Monopoly Investments, was recently bought out by Crystal businesspony Alba Dorata. Mister Dorata met with the board of directors this morning and promised that he would bring the company in new directions. Board member Silver Fortune stated that they had every confidence in Mister Dorata…”
Tuning out the radio, Daring glanced in the rearview mirror. She could just see Flash’s motorcycle prowling behind them, Flash himself bent over the handlebars, face adorned with a bright blue helmet crudely decorated with hoof-painted golden lightning bolts. Twilight was sitting behind him, hooves wrapped tight around his waist, wearing a purple helmet; Phillip was sitting in the sidecar, one hoof holding his trilby down onto his head.
“How much farther?” she asked Prowl.
“Not much longer,” Prowl replied, turning onto a potholed road that led away from the suburbs they were currently driving through. “You sure about this, Daring?”
“I’m sure that I’m not gonna sit on my ass and just wait for things to happen,” Daring replied. “And I’m sure that this is the only lead we’ve got, so I’m pretty sure about this.”
“So what do you think this temple’s gonna be like?” Bumblebee asked, bouncing in his seat excitedly. “Are there gonna be lots of traps and secret passageways and stuff?”
“You’ve been reading too much Hayana Pones,” Daring snorted, smiling to herself. “I've raided hidden temples and tombs like this before, retrieving treasures for museums and collectors and shit. Most temples don’t have stuff like that.”
“But some do have traps?” Bumblebee asked.
“Yeah,” Daring scoffed. “Things like boulders propped up on rotten woodwork and fake walls that lead into dead ends and pitfalls. No flying buzzsaws or pressure-trigger darts or hidden doors or anything like that.”
“Awww,” Bumblebee pouted. “I was hoping to have some awesome stories for Arc when he comes home this weekend.”
“Don’t you think you two are moving a bit fast?” Prowl asked, turning left at a t-intersection and heading into a darker, wooded area. “You’ve only been dating for a few months, and he’s already living with you on his weekends.”
“Maple Leaf proposed to you on the day he met,” Bumblebee smirked. “Four times.”
Prowl blushed faintly. “He had a concussion and was on heavy painkillers, and I’d just yanked him out of a river,” she muttered, turning onto a dirt path.
“A match made in Elysium if I ever heard one,” Bumblebee grinned, nudging Prowl. "I mean, you two were exchanging letters every week for two years."
“Okay, fine, maybe I don’t have an argument,” Prowl muttered. “We’re here.”
They had paused before a gate that blocked the one-way dirt road. Beyond the section of chainlink fence, the gates yawning open towards them, a path had been carved through the woods, leaves and branches shoved aside and trunks cut down. Grooves from several different tires were worn heavily into the ground.
“Okay, let’s go!” Bumblebee said eagerly.
“Wait,” Prowl said, her narrow eyes focused on the guard booth beside the gates. “There should be somepony in there.”
Behind them, Phillip got off the bike and jogged over to the booth, peering inside. He crouched down, examining the narrow interior with a stool, a small table built into the wall, a stack of books and a set of playing cards in the middle of a game of solitaire, and a newspaper turned to an article about the temple’s excavation. A cigarette sat in a half-full ashtray, a faint wisp of smoke still rising from the tip.
And then he spotted the dark red stain on the wall. Most of it had been wiped away, but there was one small spot left. Blood. Glancing up, he then noticed that the chain on the gate was broken, the padlock dangling from one gate.
Phillip trotted back to the cruiser as Flash and Twilight walked up. “There’s blood,” he reported. “And that gate’s been broken open.”
Prowl scowled. “I’m calling for backup,” she stated.
“We’ve got to get in there,” Daring retorted. “They might be after the High Priest’s ring.”
“Hold on,” Prowl ordered. “We don’t know how many intruders might be in there.”
“And we’d need more help to secure the crime scene,” Twilight said. “That temple is large, too large for us to secure and search on our own.”
“But there might be ponies hurt and needing help,” Flash pointed out. “We can’t just stay here and wait.”
“Agreed,” Phillip grunted. “We’re going in.”
Prowl scowled, but sighed. “Fine. But I’m calling backup anyway.”
Daring got out of the cruiser and took flight as Flash, Twilight, and Phillip clambered back onto the bike and Flash revved the engine. The motorcycle passed the cruiser as Prowl spoke into the radio hoofset, calling in a break-in and warning that the suspects were possibly armed and dangerous. Flicking on the emergency lights, she pressed the accelerator and followed the dirt path into the woods.
A few twists and turns later, they entered a clearing, the trees and brush burnt away by magic. A small mound of dirt stood before them, about the size of a single-story cottage, constructed of mud packed atop stone. An arch constructed of stone was set into the side, some traces of the ancient foliage that had once concealed it still clinging to it. Carvings of eyes and other strange symbols marred the stone, still faintly visible.
A few tents had been set up around the clearing, providing protection from the elements that would allow archeologists to examine artifacts in safety. Daring trotted up to the closest tent and pulled the flap open. Inside were a couple of folding tables. On one were several ancient parchments and carved stone tablets, one of them marked with a symbol of two crescent moons facing each other; on the other were shards of pottery and a few ancient coins set carefully inside wooden cases. Curiosity compelled Daring to step forward and study the coins.
“Hmm,” she mused to herself, studying the faint image of an alicorn embossed on a large silver coin, surrounded by markings in an ancient runic tongue. “Third century, southern Equestria. This cult must’ve called quite a few ponies up here. I wonder how they got them to all come up this far north…”
“It’s not impossible that they had messengers and members even that far south,” Twilight said.
“True, but what I wonder most is how they didn’t stand out when they came up here for worship,” Daring commented. “Maybe they had some kind of convention or something…”
“Can we focus?” Prowl replied, sticking her head into the tent. “Something’s wrong: there’s no sign of anypony around here, but there are traces of blood.”
Phillip walked to the stone entrance and crouched down, examining the mud beneath a flashlight. “Multiple tracks leading inside,” he reported. “More blood, too.” He squinted at the ground, studying the tracks.
“Any idea how many?” Prowl asked.
“At least...six,” Phillip said. “Griffon tracks, too.”
“Uh-oh,” Bumblebee muttered.
Flash turned to Twilight. “Twi, I think it’d be best if you waited out here,” he stated.
“But…” Twilight started to protest.
“Twi, please,” Flash pleaded.
“He’s right,” Prowl added. “If they’re still in there, it could get hairy, and you’d just be in the way.”
Twilight hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Just be careful.”
Flash gave Twilight a quick kiss on the lips. “I will.”
Drawing their flashlights and strapping them to their shoulders, the group entered the stone arch. The darkness of the narrow hallway closed in on them, and Daring suddenly knew what it felt like to be a cockroach looking up at a hoof hanging overhead. The scent of rot and ancient must filled their nostrils, the wet mud squishing faintly beneath their hooves as they descended into the ground.
Their flashlights fell on a hoof-drawn map posted on the wall in front of them, marking out the explored area. The entrance hallway led around a couple of corners to a massive room that was labeled “Sanctuary,” and had two small branching rooms coming off it, marked “Changing rooms” and “Offering room?”
“Okay, let’s go,” Daring said. “And be careful what you guys touch. There are hundreds of years of history in there; any of it could be destroyed by so much as sneezing on it.”
Bumblebee shivered a bit. “Does anypony else have a bad feeling about this?” he whispered as they descended.
“Bee, it’s just superstition,” Prowl stated. “There’s no—”
She suddenly froze and whirled around, eyes wide and shining in the dark. “What?” she breathed.
“What is it?” Daring asked.
Prowl stared into the darkness behind her for a moment more, her eyes swiveling from side to side, then shook her head. “Nothing. I just...thought I heard voices,” she mumbled, pushing past Phillip. “Let’s keep moving.”
They proceeded down the hallway, each step taking them further beneath the ground. The squish of the mud beneath their hooves eventually silenced as they moved onto solid clay. The beams of their flashlights barely seemed to penetrate the shadows; in fact, Daring swore that the further they went, the more the flashlights dimmed.
They passed a side room that was illuminated by a trio of standing lamps. There were several hooks set into the walls of the room, with black hooded cloaks decorated with faint images of constellations hanging off of them and silver-laid wooden masks laying haphazardly on shelves. Small rooms with faded curtains that would have once allowed ponies to change into their ritual clothing in private stood along the back wall.
“What’s with the masks?” Flash mused.
“Nightmare Moon wasn’t just the goddess of the night, she was the goddess of secrets,” Daring explained, studying a mask lying askew on a nearby shelf. It was designed to look like a sleeping face, eyes shut peacefully, with a decoration of stars on the forehead. “The cultists probably thought that keeping their identities secret from the others pleased her or something. Plus, if they didn’t know each other, or only knew a few members, they couldn’t betray each other.”
“Couldn’t the rings identify each other?” Flash pointed out.
Daring frowned. “Maybe they kept them hidden from each other. It’d certainly help with the paranoia…”
“Yeah, fascinating,” Prowl rolled her eyes. “Can we move—”
Suddenly, the flashlights and the lamps flickered and went out, plunging the group into darkness so thick, it felt like a pillow clamped over Daring’s face; she found herself instinctively gasping for air. An icy wind rattled down the hallway, rustling through their manes, echoing in their ears, first coming from behind them, then rushing back into their faces; for one moment, Daring could’ve sworn that it sounded like breathing.
A moment later, the lights snapped back on, revealing the group standing frozen, wide eyes blinking from the sudden change in light. “Um…” Phillip said, shaking his head and refocusing. “Okay. That was kind of scary. Let’s go.”
Daring let out an annoyed grunt, ordering her heart to slow down. It was just a little darkness caused by an electrical fault. The odds that all of those lights could’ve glitched out all at once might be long, but it could happen. “Maybe I’ve been reading too much Hayana Pones,” she muttered, walking on.
They proceeded further down the hallway, silent save for their own hoofsteps and their breaths echoing off the walls. As they approached a corner, their flashlight beams fell upon the face of Nightmare Moon etched into the wall, fanged mouth open wide. The mare’s three eyes were all decorated with inlaid gems that made them appear horribly real, as though the stone facade of the goddess was watching them pass.
“Something I don’t get,” Flash stated, studying the face and trying not to shiver in the growing cold. “Why would anypony worship the Old Gods? There are dozens of stories about how monstrous they are.”
“A lot of those stories were written after Navahism became the dominant religion; of course they’d want to make themselves look good by making the pagans look bad,” Daring pointed out as they passed a side room with several shelves. “Also, keep in mind where the original worshippers were coming from. Without magic, they had no control over the weather, crops, the movement of the sun and moon, and so on. It probably gave them some comfort to think that they could influence their lives by trying to appease some gods. Their lives were harsh and brutal, so that’s what their gods became. All gods are just reflections of their worshippers.”
“Quiet!” Phillip stopped and held up a hoof, ears twitching. “I hear voices up ahead,” he stated.
“I hear them, too,” Prowl said, her ears swiveling back and forth. She exhaled sharply, then paused to listen. “I think...they’re down in the Sanctuary. Sounds like a mix between intruders and civilians. At least five hostiles.” Her brow furrowed in confusion for a moment and she exhaled again, her ears wiggling. “Okay, none of them are facing the door, and there should be some cover right next to it.
“Guns out,” Daring hissed, drawing her revolver from her holster and tightening the hoof strap. The others drew their own weapons and proceeded forward, every step light.
Two more corners and they were faced with an entrance into a grandiose circular room, well-lit by electric lamps. Several stone pews circled the room, all of them facing towards a massive statue of Nightmare Moon made of obsidian, carved so that she glared down at her worshippers, mouth open in a vicious smile and reptilian wings spread wide. The stars in her mane were made of argent gems that glittered with horrid beauty in the light. A stone balcony decorated with two crescent moons facing each other was set twenty feet up in the back wall, with a modern metal ladder leading up to it.
Four archeologists wearing hard hats and long-sleeved cargo shirts loaded with tools and gear were sitting in front of the statue, tied back to back with thick coils of rope and shivering in terror. Five intruders circled them; three griffons with machetes and pistols, an earth pony with a sawn-off shotgun leaning against a pew, and a thestral with a Type 88 carbine equipped with a bayonet hovering over them all. The bodies of several other workers lay around the room, coagulated blood clinging to their wounds. Every single one of the armed intruders had a tattoo of a silver claw on their neck.
Daring’s eyes went to a pair of large sacks that lay on the ground near the entrance, filled to bursting with gold, silver, and other valuables. It took her a moment to realize what they were: stolen offerings from the offering room.
Is that a Griffonese crown from King Silverren’s era? she pondered, studying the tiara that poked out of one sack. That belongs in a museum and they’re just going to sell it?! The greed of these—
She shook herself out of it. Focus on stopping them, Daring!
“I think we’ve made it pretty clear what’s gonna happen to you if you don’t help us,” one of the griffons snarled to the captives, walking past a corpse that lay on the stone floor, chest carved open and entrails spilling out of a wide slice in the belly. The griffon glanced down, dug a claw into the open slice and yanked out a clawful of offal, blood dripping from his talons, then stuffed the meat into his beak, swallowing the meal whole.
Bumblebee shuddered as the group quickly hid behind a pew. “Eww!” he whispered.
“One more time,” the griffon growled. “Where’s the High Priest’s bracelet?”
“We don’t know!” a single archeologist, a tall golden-brown unicorn with a bushy white mustache, cried, trembling in his bonds. “We’ve searched the entire temple and haven’t found it!”
The griffon glared at him as he seized another bunch of meat from the body and swallowed it down. “Bullshit. It’s got to be here. And once the first mate gets here, you—”
“I’m not waiting anymore,” Prowl grunted. She stood up, pistol raised. “Police! Drop your weapons!” she barked as the group proceeded down the hallway towards the intruders.
The pirates all whirled around, frozen in shock. “What?!” the leader cried, dropping the bloody meat. “How did you—?!”
“Weapons down, hooves and claws up,” Prowl repeated, aiming her sidearm at him.
The thestral dropped his carbine and raised his hooves...but as the officers proceeded forward down the pitted hallway, his wing snapped out and grasped a small lever on the base of the idol, snapping it down.
A great rumbling sounded from above them, accompanied by a cascade of dust. Daring looked up and her eyes widened in shock as she beheld a mass of stone spikes descending towards them.
“Look out!” she cried, grabbing Flash and Bumblebee and diving to the side. Phillip and Prowl both jumped aside just in time; the trap slammed down onto the floor with a massive boom and a cloud of dust, narrowly missing them.
“Get ‘em!” the thestral yelled, diving at Flash. The bayonet darted towards his face, and Flash jumped back with a flap of his wings, letting out a yelp that might’ve been mistaken for a little filly. His hoof caught on the top of a pew and he tumbled in midair, gasping in shock.
Ground! Ground! Where’s the ground?!
He spotted the floor beneath him and let gravity guide him back down. Momentary relief at being back on the ground was washed away when he heard a high-pitched bellow and looked up to see a bayonet racing towards him. Flash brought his pistol up to bear, but the thestral flicked the bayonet and drew a cruel red line across his foreleg, slicing through the hoof strap and disarming him.
Yelling in pain and terror, Flash jumped back from another attack, the pain transforming into a knot of panic in the pit of his stomach; a quick glance around showed that all of the others were engaged with one of the other pirates. No help was coming.
A black barrel raised up between his eyes, and a hoof squeezed at the trigger. With another cry, Flash ducked; the sound of the gunshot hit him like a punch, the heat of the passing bullet burning his ringing ears. Drawing his nightstick, he retreated once more, terror increasing with every shallow breath.
The thestral took to the air and thrust forward repeatedly, every stab aimed to kill; Flash backed up more, his nightstick batting the barrel aside with a rhythm of clacks. But for every step he took back, his foe took two flaps forward; a glance behind him revealed that the wall was mere feet away.
Gotta close the distance…
The thestral backed up in midair with a flap, hoof grasping the bolt action of his rifle with a heavy clicking. Flash’s heart jumped in his chest; this had to be his moment!
Forgetting the terror, forgetting everything but the adrenaline in his legs and his wings, he charged forward, gripping the nightstick so tight his hoof went white.
Gritting his fangs, the thestral stabbed at him once more. Expecting the move, Flash turned, wings flapping once to guide him to one side. The attack missed him by inches; his free hoof seized the barrel, still hot from the shot, and his knee drove itself deep into his enemy’s gut. Breath whooshed out of the batpony, his golden eyes widening in shock, and Flash crashed the nightstick down onto his hooves, knocking the Type 88 from his grasp.
In a move he’d drilled many times before, he thrust the baton back, driving the end into the thestral’s nose. Bone cracked, blood flew, and the thestral howled in pain, falling from the sky as his wings failed him. Throwing the carbine aside, Flash followed him down, sending the nightstick crashing into the pirate’s jaw. The thestral hit the stone ground with a heavy thud and did not move again, letting out a feeble groan.
Panting, Flash looked around. The griffon that Bumblebee was grappling with was suddenly stunned by a boomerang to the back of the head, allowing Bee to send him to the floor with a takedown and finish him off with three quick punches to the face. Prowl and Phillip both finished off the earth pony pirate with a double punch to the jaw as Daring wrapped her kusarifundo around the hungry griffon’s paw, yanking him to the ground where she finished him with a final strike to the temple.
“That all of them?” Phillip grunted, looking around.
“That’s all of them,” Daring confirmed, stepping over the unconscious pirate’s form. She looked up at Flash and nodded. “Nice job, everypony.”
Bumblebee looked at the massive stone that had lowered down over where they’d been standing and whistled. “No traps, huh?” he asked Daring.
“Okay, I can be wrong once in a while,” Daring rolled her eyes as she untied the imprisoned archeologists. “You guys okay?”
“Y-yes,” the mustachioed archeologist nodded, trembling. “But…” He looked over the bodies that lay around the sanctuary. “Oh, Luna, they killed all of them…”
“They’ll pay,” Daring growled, glaring at an unconscious griffon as Prowl cuffed him.
“Flash! Flash!” a voice screamed, accompanied by the sound of hoofsteps rushing from the hallway. Prowl instinctively raised her pistol towards the incoming intruder, but lowered it when Twilight turned the corner, panting as she ran, wide eyes taking in the scene.
“Are you okay?!” Twilight cried, running up to Flash. She gasped when she spotted the blood trickling down his foreleg. “You’re hurt!”
“It’s just a little cut, I’m fine,” Flash tried to reassure her with a smile.
“It could get infected, especially down here!” Twilight cried, using her magic to heal the injury in moments.
“That’s what you’re concerned about?” Daring deadpanned, clicking the lever on the base of the statue. With a series of clicks and groans, the trap slowly retracted itself back into the ceiling.
“I told you to wait outside anyway,” Flash scolded Twilight.
“I heard gunshots and…” Twilight swallowed as she started looking the imprisoned archeologists over for any injuries. “I couldn’t stand waiting out there, imagining you hurt, or taken hostage, or...or de…” She swallowed and glanced at the corpse of the assistant that the griffon lieutenant had been feasting on.
“I can handle myself, Twilight,” Flash replied. “You can’t just rush in here without thinking, you could’ve gotten yourself hurt!”
“I was just trying to help!” Twilight replied. “I thought—"
“Enough,” Phillip interrupted. He walked over to the thestral, who was groaning feebly, eyes flickering as they tried to stir. Scowling, he nudged the stallion sharply. “Eyes open, wanker.”
The thestral grunted and shook his head, glaring and baring his fangs at Phillip. “Why do you want the High Priest’s ring?” Phillip growled at him, pitching his voice as low as a thunderclap.
“The crew of the Silver Talon don’t talk to pigs,” the thestral snapped, punctuating his taunt by spitting into Phillip’s face.
The cold touch of saliva dripped down Phillip’s cheek, and a hot rush like swallowing lava rushed down his spine, boiling in his stomach. A dark voice whispered in his ear that he could take this stallion out into the offering room by himself, see how long that vow lasted. Already he was focusing on the wing joints, the knees, the nose, the floating ribs that were all so easy to break, and would cause enough pain to make anypony talk…
A thrill of horror spread from his heart, and he shook himself out of these dark thoughts, turning away. Use your brain, Finder.
He glanced at the bag of stolen goods, gears already turning. “You didn’t want it for money,” he concluded. “You’d have just taken this and left. You know what it’s for. Which means...you’re looking for the professor.”
He scowled. “Who told you that the Professor had a Ring of H’eylr?”
The thestral scowled at him, then turned away, refusing to speak again. Phillip let out a quiet growl, and a dark urge rose up in him once more, like a snake rearing back in its coils to strike, but he forced it down.
With a clinking noise, some silver coins fell out of the thestral’s jacket pocket as he shifted. Phillip studied them, noting the Griffonese markings surrounding the embossed head of a griffon king. He recognized it: denarii from the North Griffon Kingdom.
Something clicked in his mind, and he snatched a coin up, holding it up for Daring to see. “Look familiar?”
Daring studied the coin, and then her eyes widened as she also remembered a stack of those same coins deposited on the countertop of McNeighly’s. “Night Waltz,” she growled.
“We’re going to have to have a chat with him,” Phillip agreed.
Prowl’s ears swiveled towards the hallway. “Sirens. Just in time,” she sighed. “Let’s get out of here.”
They carried the captured pirates and the shaken but thankfully mostly unhurt archeologists back up to the surface and into the waiting arms of responding officers. The pirates were carted into a paddy wagon, while the survivors were wrapped up in shock blankets and calmly interviewed for statements.
Daring studied the temple for a moment, then walked up to the mustachioed archeologist. “Hey, you okay?” she asked.
The unicorn nodded numbly, tightly clutching the blanket he had wrapped around him.
“What’s your name?” Daring asked.
“Doctor Fossil Record,” the unicorn mumbled.
“Doctor Record,” Daring continued. “Are you sure you haven’t found the High Priest’s ring? It’s kind of important.”
“No,” Doctor Record shook his head. “We’ve searched all of the temple, and haven’t found it.”
“Damn,” Daring muttered. “There’s no telling where it is.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s here,” Flash said, head lowered in thought.
“Why?” Daring asked.
“Let me...let me see if this makes sense…” Flash said, tapping his head. “Now, the book said that the High Priest was supposed to keep his identity secret. So they’d have to come here and change in private…so they had to have their own room...and they’d have to keep the ring here because it’d give them away in public...” He pondered for a moment. “On that map, it said that there was a tunnel in the back.”
“That leads to a dead end,” Doctor Record stated. “Nothing there but a carved face of Nightmare Moon. We're not sure what it's for.”
“No, but it had a symbol on it,” Daring said, recalling the image of the map in her mind. “Two crescents again…”
“We think that’s the high priest’s symbol,” Doctor Record stated. “It’s carved over the pathway, very faintly.”
“Yeah, it was on the balcony, too,” Daring said. “Where does that lead?”
“Also to a dead end,” Doctor Record shrugged.
“But how did they get up there?” Flash pondered. “Not all the High Priest’s could be pegasi…”
“There’s a lot of open space inside the temple behind the sanctuary, that’s got to be where the High Priest’s room is…” Daring mused for a few moments, then nodded. “There was a tablet with that symbol on it in one of the tents.”
“We recovered that from a village to the north of the forest,” Doctor Record explained. “It has some instructions on finding the temple, and some notes on temple rituals.”
“Is there anything on moving into the temple?” Daring asked.
Doctor Record pondered for a moment. “There is one passage we couldn’t make heads or tails out of,” he finally nodded. “‘The High Priest must let the mistress drink of her blood and make adorations to the waning crescent to enter her secrets.’ We think it has something to do with a sacrifice at the crescent moon.”
Daring frowned in thought, then took to the sky, flying around to the back of the massive mound. Phillip jogged after her, rounding the temple to find a tunnel carved into the back of the hill, vines and leaves still hanging from the top of the roughly-hewn entrance.
The tunnel only extended a couple of yards and ended at a solid wall. Daring was currently staring at a carved icon of Nightmare Moon placed at about head height on the wall. Beneath the forked tongue was a small basin; above was the twin crescent moons. Daring tilted her flashlight into the basin, studying the dark, faded stains in the middle of it.
“What’re you thinking?” Phillip asked as Flash and Prowl joined them.
“Well, it’s a crazy idea,” Daring mused. “And something that Nightingale Star would come up with in Hayana Pones, but...I’m thinking that this tunnel isn’t just here for show. I’m thinking that if you want to pop in early, unseen, this might be a perfect place.”
She looked at the basin, then grimaced and pulled a pocketknife from her vest, flicking the blade open. “And I think I know what at least part of that passage meant,” she added.
“Daring, wait,” Flash said, raising a hoof. “You sure about this?”
Daring shrugged. “I didn’t say it was a good idea.” She raised her foreleg over the stone basin and pressed the tip of the knife against her flesh.
“I’ll do it,” Phillip offered, stepping forward.
“No,” Daring shook her head and gave him a thin, nervous grin. “I came up with the idea. I should do it.”
And with that, Daring drew a line across her foreleg with the blade, wincing slightly at the pain. Red blood dribbled from the wound and slowly trickled into the basin.
As soon as the basin was half-full, the three jeweled eyes glowed. With a crack and a rumbling, the wall to their right shifted and began to slide back into the ground.
“Well, holy shit, it worked,” Daring muttered, pulling out a roll of gauze and wrapping up her wound. She proceeded carefully down the hallway, flashlight leading the way. The tunnel led downwards, winding deeper and deeper into the ground. Phillip, Flash, and Prowl followed her, rocks and dust crunching faintly beneath their hooves.
The hallway soon branched off into several different pathways, each of them marked with a different phase of the moon carved above them: new moon to crescent to gibbous to full, and then back to new.
As Daring turned in place, pondering her options, her hoof impacted against something on the floor. She looked down and gasped. A pony’s skull stared up at her, empty eyes wide and jaw hanging open as if in surprise.
“Whoa,” Prowl gasped, staring at the head.
Daring scanned the ground and spotted a blood trail leading from a hallway marked with a full moon. A pony’s skeleton, its legs below the knees laying a couple of feet away from the ribs and spine and a stump all that remained of the neck, lay a few feet down the hallway. The remnants of a faded cloak and a rusted oil lantern lay next to the body.
“How’d he die?” Flash asked.
Phillip swept his flashlight along the sides of the full moon hallway, noticing several horizontal lines carved into the walls. Each of the hallways had similar lines along the walls. “Trap,” he grunted.
“I keep telling you, Phil; Hayana Pones isn’t totally ridiculous,” Daring commented, studying the moon icons over the pathways. “'Make adorations to the waning crescent…'” She aimed her flashlight at the carved silver symbol of a waning crescent over a narrow hallway to her left. She studied the carved lines along the hallways. “Make adorations,” she muttered. “As in kneel down. Close to the ground.”
She walked up to the mouth of the hallway, her flashlight beam only reaching a few feet down the dark pathway. The shadows ahead seemed like a cold void; anything could be hiding in there. She gulped and then crouched down low to the ground, so low that her belly was scratching against the gravel.
“I’ll try not to lose my head,” Daring declared, shooting a tight grin back at the others. Turning back to the hallway, she proceeded to crawl forward. One hoof at a time. One foot became two, then a yard, then three yards. So far, so good—
And then there was a click and something heavy whooshed past inches over her head, drawing a gasp from Daring. She glanced up to discover that two circular blades had emerged from the walls and passed by over her head. The spinning blades were rusted and dusty, but the diamond edges glowed beneath her flashlight.
“Yikes,” Daring whispered, and kept going forward.
“You okay, Daring?” Phillip called from the end of the hallway.
“I’m fine!” she shouted back. “I think I’m almost at the end!”
Indeed, she turned a corner and found herself looking into a large room. The beam from her flashlight caught several golden and silver plates and idols placed on a table. She crawled forward the last few feet and stood up, looking around.
The room she was standing in was massive, and all around her were treasures that would’ve made any museum director’s mouth water. Carved gold and jade idols, jewel-encrusted chalices, surreal paintings of constellations in bizarre colors, framed in valuable metals. In the center of the room was a marble stand; atop the stand was a set of sweeping dark blue robes decorated with several stars and eyes. A silvery mask with three eyes was on another stand next to it, the eyes staring right at her. The High Priest’s mask.
“It’s okay, guys!” Daring called back up the hallway. “Just keep low, you’ll be fine!”
She started to walk around in a circle, sweeping her flashlight low across the ground. By the time that she’d finished her first circuit, Phillip had joined her.
“Hooley dooley,” he breathed, staring at the treasures around the room.
“Hey, check this out,” Daring said, proceeding to the back of the room where a smaller arched pathway waited. She walked down it until she reached a stone wall. Looking around, she spotted a lever on the wall next to it.
“This is probably a bad idea,” she muttered to herself and pulled the lever. The wall shifted aside with a groan of ancient gears and she found herself on the balcony overlooking the sanctuary.
“So that explains it,” she nodded, turning back inside and proceeding back into the High Priest’s chambers as Flash and Prowl entered, both of them staring around in awe. “Nice instincts, kid,” she smiled to Flash.
“What’s this?” Phillip muttered, bending down to study the foot of the stand. Blowing aside some dust, he revealed a faint square outline in the stone. Plucking out a pocket knife, he dug the blade into the square and gently started to pry at it. It took a few seconds of work, but then the little door popped open.
Inside was a golden bracelet adorned with jeweled eyes, the precious metal faded but still shining beneath their flashlight beams. The High Priest’s Ring of H’eylr.
“Yes!” Daring cheered, punching the air with a hoof as Flash let out an excited whoop, rising up onto his hind legs and kicking his forelegs.
Phillip carefully pulled the ring out of the cubby and placed it in a plastic bag that he plucked from his vest. He considered the ring for a moment, then gave it to Daring. “You should have the honors,” he smiled.
Daring grinned and pocketed the bracelet, noting its surprising weight. “Okay, let’s get out of here. The rest of this stuff belongs in a museum.”
“You should’ve been an archeologist,” Flash commented as they headed back up the hallway, crawling low to avoid the blades.
Daring chuckled as they crawled back. “I had a dream of being a treasure hunter when I was a kid, reading about ancient civilizations and treasures,” she recounted. “Kinda became that at one point.” She glanced at the pocket holding the ring. “This...was kinda like old times again.”
“Even the traps?” Flash asked.
Daring instinctively ducked as a saw blade passed by over her head. “Okay, except for that.”
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Can anyone say Chekhov's gun?
Also, so glad Daring's finally started raiding temples and tombs, even if by god this chapter was creepy. Getting flashbacks to "Seeing Monsters" actually. Which from me, is high phrase indeed considering that's one of my definitive Daring Do horror stories.
I think that at some points stories need to show off a little bit of a fantastical side to them, even if there heavily rooted in the probable or just realism,
so I personally don't mind the change...
...
Oh and I thought the chapter was cool and cant wait for the next one yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
9682169
Yay!
Awesome chapter!
9682533
Thank you!
1 The moment she mentioned saw blades, I knew she was tempting fate.
2 The griffon made me think - What exactly counts as cannibalism in a mixed species society?
3 With how much blood was needed to open the door, I hope it the temple didn;t hold daily gatherings
9689726
Services were more like once a month.
As for cannibalism...hmm, good point. Griffins do eat meat, but eating ponies has been generally frowned upon for the past few centuries. (It’s also worth noting that in my AU, animals like cows and pigs are non-sentient)
And as we all know, the penetent man must kneel and then throw himself violently to the left before the lord!
9965821
Indeed!
Always watch out for traps Daring.
9965821
Lol I got that reference.
Love the Last Crusade vibes going on here
10617100
I was hoping to finally be able to channel canon Daring into this story. I was a bit worried that it would seem out of place with the rest of the story, but people seem to like it!