Amethyst Star Isn't Prepared For This

by MagicS

The Beaten Path

In the depths of a humid jungle, Amethyst Star wandered around looking for any signs of civilization. Well, it wasn’t “a” jungle. It was the same one she had been traveling through for a while now. Turned out the thing was a lot bigger than she ever expected. At least the part she was walking through now was more open, there were a lot of wide open dirt paths so she didn’t have to struggle over trees and bushes. But she hadn’t seen any other pony or any sort of pony-made objects in well over a day. She knew that other ponies weren’t a prerequisite for an adventure but they did usually mean more opportunities, and having someone to talk to would’ve been nice. The jungle was getting boring to her thanks to how long she’d been stuck in it so anything to break that monotony would be welcomed. It only took a single day for her to be tired of that swamp she traveled through and she’d been in here for far longer.

She should count herself lucky that at least she wasn’t accosted by anything like a Maulworf again. In fact there had been a distinct lack of danger on this adventure so far, unless it was danger she had brought on herself in the first place through poor decision making. But Amethyst Star kind of wanted there to be more danger. It wouldn’t be a very impressive adventure if she just walked around jungles and over hills the whole time she was out here. Even the competitions and conflicts she had been a part of so far lacked that kind of intensity.

Where was that sort of danger that comes to mind when one thinks of adventure?

If she had a little more self-awareness she’d remember how poorly that encounter with the Maulworf went and how she almost died. So she wouldn’t exactly be wishing for danger. Or at least not that much.

An acceptable amount of danger. Liiiike… some criminal trying to steal her bag? Yeah, that would work for her.

Pleased at first, Amethyst Star nodded to herself. She knew she could handle that. It wasn’t exactly the epic adventure kind of danger though. In fact it was the boring everyday kind of danger that wouldn’t make her look special or amazing at all when she defeated the criminal. Is that really how small town and normal her mind was? That when she was trying to think of what sort of danger she’d like to overcome on a quest she ends up coming up with something so shallow and ordinary? That pleasant feeling she had up and evaporated.

“Okay, forget all that. Give me something dangerous! There has to be something in this huge jungle, right?” She shouted up through the trees. “Monsters, natural disasters, evil wizards, something!”

There was no response aside from the rustling of leaves thanks to the light breeze working its way through the jungle.

“Pff, whatever,” Amethyst Star waved a dismissive hoof and kept on walking.

The dirt path she was on opened up into a crossroads, with paths heading off to each of the cardinal directions as far as she could tell and a big rock stuck in the middle of the paths. Her compass was still haywire unfortunately so she couldn’t see how straight and true they were. Either way it didn’t matter since she was going to keep heading west. She did pause for a second to look down each of the other paths to see if there was anything interesting but it all just looked like more forest in every direction. With a shrug she continued on, walking around the rock to the other side.

But as she passed the rock something about it grabbed her attention. She did a double-take, not sure if what she was seeing was real at first.

There was writing on the rock. Carvings actually. Stepping closer, Amethyst Star got a better look at what the rock said:

W. S. WAS HERE

M. V. WAS HERE

D. G. WAS HERE

“What is this?” Amethyst Star raised an eyebrow at the rock. “I guess some ponies have already been here...”

There was an obvious age difference between the three carvings, with the top one clearly the oldest and the bottom the newest. So whoever these three were they didn’t come to this rock at the same time. Whoever W. S. was they must’ve just felt like carving their name here and the other two decided to join in whenever they saw it. Looking down, Amethyst Star saw a sharp, knife-shaped rock on the ground, leaning up against the big one.

“They must have used this,” she said as she lifted it up with her magic.

She stared at it. Then back at the carved rock. Then back to knife.

Finally the unicorn shrugged. “Well if I couldn’t be the first here I guess I can still leave my mark too.” With the dagger rock and her magic Amethyst Star carved her initials and “was here” right under D. G.’s message. She had no idea who any of them were or how long ago they came here but she felt a kinship, misplaced or otherwise, with the other three ponies. They must have all been explorers or travelers too. It felt good to have a connection like this even if she would have preferred to have been the first out here.

She smiled and was about to head on when she noticed something else on the rock, at the very bottom of the face where the other carvings were, partially obscured by some grass and a lone rose, there was another message carved in much smaller letters. Amethyst Star had to lean down and squint to see what it said for sure:

BEWARE OF HARLEQUINS

“Huh?” Amethyst Star leaned back and scratched her head, wondering what the hay a Harlequin was. “Well, whatever.” She got over it and finished her walk around the rock, continuing on her westward path.

---

Amethyst Star whistled to herself as she trotted through the jungle at a quickened pace, her mood a bit more jovial ever since the rock even though she couldn’t really put into words why exactly she was feeling so good. She knew this path had to lead somewhere though and that made it a lot easier to continue on through here. Instead of thinking that the tread through the jungle was boring she was optimistic about what may lay ahead.

“Adventure could be right around the corner!” She happily mused.

The jungle wasn’t whim to her hopes though and the path merely stretch onward for now, it curved sharply up ahead too so she wouldn’t be going directly west if she stayed on it all the way. She didn’t see any more rocks with carvings on them or other paths that branched off, and the thick jungle just off the cleared path seemed to get even thicker since the crossroads. Looking into it was like looking into a solid green mass. Anyone would get lost in a second if they tried to make a shortcut through there. Thinking about it, there was probably a greater chance of adventure and danger if she got off the beaten path and started stumbling through the untamed jungle, right?

She shook her head. “No, I’d just get stuck somewhere, better just keep on the path.”

Buuut… one of the reasons she came out to the Undiscovered West was because she thought it was “undiscovered” after all. This promptly turned out to not be the case and that severely disappointed her since she wanted to be able to call herself the first pony who had been out here. Now at best she might be able to call herself the first Equestrian but even that seemed very unlikely.

If she did go off the path maybe she would be the first pony to find something special here in this jungle?

Because she was thinking about that while walking the unicorn wasn’t paying attention to her hooves and she promptly tripped over a rock.

“Ow! Really?” Amethyst Star yelped in pain as she fell to the ground. She rubbed her hoof and frowned, looking back at what she hit. “Stupid—rock? Huh?”

The object partially stuck in the ground was certainly made of stone like a rock but its sides were far too smooth to be natural for something lying out here. Amethyst Star got up and inspected it, from what she could see it was like a little triangular point sticking up out of the dirt that rose no higher than her hoof. Wanting to see more of what it was, Amethyst Star started digging at the dirt around the stone to excavate it. From what she could tell it looked like the smooth sides and top of the thing formed a square-like shape. Maybe it was a pillar that had fallen over ages ago? As she dug up a little more of it it was obvious that it was way too big for her to uncover completely. It was nearly as wide as she was long.

Getting tired of digging, Amethyst Star shook the dirt off her hooves and smiled. “Hah, knew there had to be something in this jungle. Wonder if there’s anything else like this around?”

She turned to head back down the path, searching from side to side as she walked to make sure nothing else escaped her. And those eyes of her just happened to spot something else partially hidden in the bushes off the path.

“Cool!” Amethyst Star trotted over, pushing her way partially into the bushes to check out her latest discovery.

It was the weathered statue of a roaring lion. Chipped, covered in moss and vines, but still in good enough condition that Amethyst Star could tell what it was. Whoever sculpted it must’ve done a good job since it hadn’t completely fallen apart in the ages it had been left here. It looked like it might have been painted at one point but that had all faded away. Amethyst Star stepped back out of the bushes and grinned some more.

“There’s gotta be even more...” she shook in excitement. Ruins? That sounded like adventure to her! Now she just needed to find something bigger, like an abandoned castle!

Amethyst Star made even quicker pace down the path, no longer caring about that sharp curve up ahead that would force her to go north for a bit if it meant something might be there. She had a good feeling about all this that even her recent failures couldn’t quench. That optimism caused her to trot along faster until she reached the curve, where she slid to a stop with a manic grin on her face, as if expecting there to actually be something amazing right around the corner.

Turned out there was.

The unicorn’s jaw dropped as she stared at the ruins of a large temple that stood in the jungle. Like the lion statue there were vines and even trees growing all over it and parts of it had fallen to pieces but it was still a mostly intact temple. “Woah...” she looked up and down it, it wasn’t too tall, maybe like a three story house, but it looked like it extended a ways back into the jungle. There was a large door facing her as well that looked to be in perfectly good condition. It had a wheel with numerous spokes on it that one probably had to turn to open it up, and a pattern of squares and triangles all painted on it. There looked to be other carvings and places where statues once stood on the temple but they had been lost to time, as well as any color that might have been there, leaving the stone temple a sandy color where the jungle hadn’t grown on it.

“Time to explore an ancient temple!” Amethyst Star shouted. Finally something she was really eager to do on this adventure. It really was just what she wanted. She quickly walked up to the big door and checked over the wheel, it definitely looked like it was connected in some way to another mechanism inside the door. “Oh boy, oh boy!”

Amethyst Star reached up to grab one of the spokes and turn it...

“Stop!”

She couldn’t even process the command before she felt herself tackled to the ground, rolling across the dirt until she came to a stop with another pony standing over her, hooves pressed into the ground on the sides of her head.

“Don’t touch that! Who are you and what are you doing out here?!” The pony asked her.

As Amethyst Star regained her senses she found her jaw dropping in surprise once again at the pony she saw. Khaki yellow fur, a grayscale mane and tail, red eyes, a compass rose Cutie Mark, green explorer’s shirt, and a safari cap. If she was in a more cognizant state she would’ve been happily thinking about how she just miraculously found her way into an adventure story. Instead she was just shocked and confused. Amethyst Star never thought she’d see this pony in real life, but she knew her well from the books her little sister liked to read.

“Daring Do?!”

Comments

[Nyperold]

Oh dear. Possibly the most awesome aspect of her adventure yet, and:

1) her circle of friends probably wouldn't believe her,
2) the ponies who would would because they beat her to meeting her, and
3) she probably wouldn't really be allowed to tell anyone outside of the Mane Six.

[RoboRed]

1)

BEWARE OF HARLEQUINS

...But which one, though? That is the question.

2) Okay yeah, wandering a big spooky ancient temple alone? High on the list of "bad ideas".
3) Daring Do!!!