Previous Chapters Next
Close
1 - What a Find2,006 words
2 - Peer Review2,008 words
3 - Take a Number1,961 words
4 - Random Penguins2,009 words
5 - Into Jungle Deep1,978 words
6 - Flying is For Birds2,033 words
7 - Goals Revealed2,000 words
8 - What Treasures2,005 words
9 - Tactical Repositioning2,006 words
10 - Taking Stock2,002 words

7 - Goals Revealed

She awoke with a prodding of a hoof into her side. "Mmm?"

"We'ze goin'," informed the larger of the goons. "You comin' or not?"

Given a moment, she could make out the light spilling in from outside. It wasn't bright, the jungle didn't allow that, but it wasn't the dark of night either. Day had clearly come. "Yes, of course." She quickly scooped up her bag and trotted outside in as dignified of a trot as she could manage.

"There she is! You were right." He made a grand wave of a hoof towards the right. "Behold, the lost temple of the kirin. Their ancestral home countless aeons ago before they migrated for reasons unknown. A find that will convince the others that I understand how to unearth the past." He began to laugh with victory, his stooges joining in after a moment.

It had been hidden by darkness alone, so obvious it was jutting out of the thick foliage were great slabs of stone, though no obvious entrance in sight. A.K. considered it with a soft hum and began circling around it. "We need to get inside if we're going to convince anyone that we've been here at all. Still... look at it. It's wonderful."

"Truly breathtaking," agreed Caballeron. "And think of the treasures hidden within. You are correct, we must get inside." He pointed at the closest wall. "Why not go directly?"

A.K. came to a sudden halt. "Are you serious?"

"Why would I not be?" He shrugged softly, seeing no reason at all not to attack the wall.

"One, noise is our enemy. Two, you could damage something on the inside tearing down a wall. Three... do you even have those tools?" She tapped her right forehoof on the ground with each number. "There has to be an actual entrance to this."

Caballeron grumbled softly at her admonishment. "We would have been careful," he groused as he turned to the side. "Go on, find that entrance!" he boomed in command, thrusting a hoof forward. His two lackies saluted and charged off in search of it.

The lines of the stone were clear in portions where vines hadn't grown over them, the way they sloped downwards had her eyes following them. Downwards? She frowned a little. Had they done that on purpose, or... She followed one line down until it hit the ground and hoofed there a moment, digging just enough to see the line continued. "It's sinking." The building was lowering into the soft ground of the jungle. Perhaps, some day, it would be entirely submerged.

Caballeron snorted, coming up towards her. "Well then, Miss Smartedy pants, what if the entrance is already underground?"

"It might be," she easily allowed. "Doesn't mean we shouldn't look for it. A window or a chimney might also work as an entrance in a pinch." She spread her wings. "I'll look from above." With quick flaps, she ascended, leaving Caballeron behind.

He glared in the direction she had fled. "You think you know it all? Hmmph." He stomped off with his own plans in mind.

A.K. landed lightly on the tilting side of the building and began trotting up along it, her wings holding her steady on the precarious angle as she ascended carefully. "They didn't just make a big stone cube," or so she hoped, eyes darting for clues.

She brushed a cluster of vines aside, revealing cold stone beneath. Some roots revealed wonderful carvings of strange curved horns, but no entrance. A patch of webs she hesitated in front of before taking a slow breath. "I don't see any spiders..." She reached in and brushed the dry webs aside, revealing darkness. An entrance!

Filled with excitement, she scrambled through what seemed to have once been a little window, now turned into a serviceable door. She landed with a dusty puff on the stone floor. She was inside! She set her bag down and dug out a flashlight, clenching her teeth around it to click the button and summon light into the area.

There was no giant spider about to eat her. No sleeping cats or bears or something even more horrible were lunging for her. Her mission was proceeding smoothly. She turned back to the window and poked her head out. "I found a way in," she shouted out to anyone that could hear her. That was only fair, right?

Her duty complete, she slung her bag onto her back and got to pressing deeper, poking he head out of the room she had fallen into to see a narrow hallway going left and right. The walls were alive with frescoes of pronking kirin. Oh, if only she could take them all. She hadn't brought a camera. Those things were big and heavy and she never really learned how to use one. Usually, she had a photographer with her on site, but she was her own crew... The best she could do was a rubbing.

She set the flashlight down and got out some paper. "I can at least do that." Somepony besides herself deserved to have some idea of the art she was seeing. She began dutifully rubbing the paper with a smudge, causing an imprint to form on it where it was pressed against the carvings behind it, allowing her to capture a crude imitation of it. "Not quite the real thing... but better than nothing," she consoled herself, folding it carefully and slipping the paper away. "My first treasure." Not her first, precisely, but the first she found entirely on her own.

"What were they like?" Not that she'd ever seen a kirin in the flesh. Did they still exist? She wasn't even sure of that. She didn't even know the temple was theirs until she'd been told earlier that day. "I will try to be respectful." Slinging her bag into place, she followed the dancing kirin on the walls. "Where are you leading me...?"

A soft click reached her ears and she recoiled as rods thrust out from either side of the wall. They hadn't come out where she was standing, making no attempt to impale her. "Don't be silly. Why would they trap a random hallway?" Her eyes swept along the walls, looking at where the rods met those walls. The carvings showed kirin mid-bounce over the rods. "A test?" She stepped from one hoof to the next. "I can do this..."

She hopped forward over the first, but the next picture showed it leaping under the next bar and over the one after that. She bounced up and the dock of her tail thumped against the bar behind her. Suddenly she was standing at the start of the hallway again. "Alright... so there is a penalty for messing up," she admitted as she shook her head, dispelling the dizziness of the sudden relocation. "It's just a little test, probably something they did for fun."

She tried to dispel her worry, to take the test in the spirit it was likely there in. Hop over, Hop under and over. Hop hop hop. She was progressing slowly but surely forward. Right back to the start. She let out a little chuckling sigh. "Oops." Back at it she went, hopping and ducking her way forward.

A.K. arrived at the last rod, but it left her perplexed. Both sides of the hallway showed what seemed to be a kirin with their hoof reaching out towards the other side of the hallway. "Is this... meant to be done as a pair?" She didn't have anyone else there to do it with.

She'd have to cheat, a little. She hopped up and down in place, testing her timing. "And..." Forward she bounded, turning in the air and thrusting her hooves out as she hit the apex, tagging both sides of the hallway where the carvings seemed to want to be tagged before she fell on the other side of the rod and tumbled awkwardly. "Made it!" she declared boldly to herself, gathering herself up.

She was in a larger room. Pews of stone seemed to lead towards what easily appeared as some kind of altar or speaking platform. That it was a gathering area seemed obvious. Visions of dozens of kirin all doing that jumping test in a great flocking mass danced in her mind, some getting yanked back to the start but there were so many of them there were still others to jump and pronk with them. "There should be..." She saw it, a simple lever. She grabbed it in her mouth and pulled it gently and it almost fell forward once it was past an inch, the rods withdrawing. "They'd need some way to turn them off for the last person if there was an odd kirin out." She nodded with confidence, turning away from it to take in the room. "What wonders..."

She trotted to the raised platform, ascending the stairs and circling the altar. There was a dull golden statue of a kirin sitting on their haunches with a little smile. Amy returned its smile as she gingerly picked it up. "You are gorgeous." Certainly it needed some heavy cleaning to bring back its original luster. "You belong in a museum, where everyone can admire you." The craftsponyship was exquisite, bringing into sharp relief just how alien kirin were, with their scaled backs and odd horns. They had tufts of fur along their tail and the back of their back legs. They were such strange creatures, but wonderful in the same breath. With due care, she tucked the little statue in her bag, visions of who she'd turn it over to for cleaning dancing in her head. "Even if I find nothing else in here, it's already worth the trip!"

Her issues with wild cats were basically forgotten in her mind. She had made a find, a real find. She was an archaeologist! "What else is there..." The altar was wonderful, but also made of stone, and rooted into the stone ground with the force of gravity. An entire team would be needed with heavy machinery to hope to extract it. No, more likely it would be the subject of study right where it started. Risking damaging it by moving it would be outrageous.

She shook her head, turning in place to look at a tall statue that loomed over the altar from behind. "Was this your god? Some primitive spiritual being?" It was a great almost-kirin. Flames wisped from its eyes and a scowl was on its face. Some kind of angry god? Before it were the remnants of things. She couldn't even make out what they had once been. "Sacrifices? Incense?" They were naught but smudges on the ground at that point. "Did you pray to this for protection? Mercy? Invigoration before trotting out to battle?" There were so many possibilities, but the statue did not speak. It would not tell her those secrets.

Some things would remain forever shrouded in the fog of time. She let out a little sigh, but her smile couldn't be entirely defeated. She pointed to a hallway she picked basically at random and trotted towards it. "I feel lucky." Surely there were more treasures to be found, rescued from obscurity in the sinking temple.

The hallway was short, leading to what seemed to be a little closet, where things were kept. She pocketed a few little curious stone implements, but there didn't seem to be much interesting in there... at first.

She stopped and squinted. The lines in the walls were mildly suspicious to her. She reached up and felt at the wall. They were little holes, not just dark pigment. They were just large enough... She drew out one of the things she had just pocketed and slid it into one of the holes. A soft click was the answer.

"It's a lock!" she boldly declared to herself, gently sliding it right back out. "If I can figure this out, maybe it leads somewhere amazing..."

Author's Note:

They say the early adventures of Daring Do were way more cerebral, becoming more action-focused as the series went. This upset some fans.

Join the special community of folks who like my stories and/or get your own here at atreon!