Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Treasure, But-

“You know I’ve explored a lot of temples and ancient ruins earlier in my life back when I was a more… selfish sort of treasure hunter. But even with that experience I couldn’t even begin to tell you how old this place is,” Daylight Gleam said as she led them up the stairs and deeper into the volcanic temple.

“I mean I’ve been in a lot too but I’ve got no idea how to tell how old something is either,” Rainbow Dash shrugged.

“It’s not as old as Merlantis or Ponyseidon’s treasures,” Senax said.

The others looked back at her and Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know how long my people have been scattered—give or take a century or two. This place just doesn’t look as old as it should be if it was around back at the same time as Ponyseidon or his direct descendants,” Senax said.

“Do you know how long Ponyseidon lived? Cause from what you’ve said about him and those treasures he had, he doesn’t exactly sound like a normal merpony,” Rainbow asked.

Senax frowned uncertainly. “It’s… unclear. T-There’s a lot I just don’t really know about Ponyseidon, Merlantis, and our history in general that I wish I did. We had books and stories hoofed down from generation to generation… but a lot was missing.” She sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t speak so certainly about anything, but I still don’t think this place looks as old as Merlantis should be.”

“Hm...” Rainbow Dash murmured as she floated around. “Also you know it’s not like I expected there to be lights on in here but I did think that maybe some lava pools would be giving us some glow.”

“I’m glad there aren’t any of those,” Daylight frowned.

Rainbow shrugged. “Just saying, it would be easier to tell where we’re going.”

“As long as I’m around we don’t really need any extra light,” Daylight said. “I can keep a spell like this going for hours, even if I need to put more power into it and light up bigger rooms.”

The group at last reached the top of the stairs and took a look around. They had ended up in a circular chamber with a roof formed out of black volcanic rock, just left in its natural state and not sculpted at all. Around them—all across the walls—were a series of doors. Seven in total, they weren’t wood like a normal door but instead large slabs of rock, but they had grooves to pull them open and were still very clearly doors.

“Well, um, this is something,” Daylight said as she rubbed her head.

“Perhaps this was built to trick and slow down intruders? Or maybe there really are this many important places to go inside the temple,” Gilbert said.

“It’s obvious none of the doors are locked or blocked at least, they swing out,” Rainbow pointed out.

“Which one do you think we should try?” Senax asked.

Daylight walked up to the first one to their left. “If nothing’s impeding us then we really just need to try all of them one by one, even if it takes some time that’s about all we can do. So let’s see what’s behind door number one.”

She put her hoof in the groove of the door and pulled it open. It slid across the stone floor surprisingly easily and Daylight took a step through—and immediately felt the floor fall out from under her. Daylight barely had time to gasp at all as she felt herself falling forward into a pit right past the door, her eyes looked down below and saw a pool of bubbling lava waiting for her. Right as her back hooves had tilted up and she was about to fully fall in, a strong hoof grasped her mane and painfully yanked her back into the main room where she collapsed with Rainbow Dash onto her back.

The two ponies sat there breathing heavily and Gilbert quickly slammed the door shut.

“A false door. I see we’ve found our first trap,” Gilbert said.

Breakwater and Senax helped Daylight and Rainbow Dash up and Senax worriedly put her hooves on the unicorn’s shoulders.

“Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah...” Daylight nodded. “That was just kind of close. Thank you, Rainbow.”

“No problem,” Rainbow Dash nodded and wiped some sweat away.

“Uh… I think we should probably be more careful when opening up the other doors,” Breakwater said.

“Most definitely,” Gilbert nodded.

“Then let me do it,” Rainbow Dash said. “I can fly and I’ve got the quickest reaction time. If the floor falls away it’s not a problem for me and any other trap I bet I can deal with too. Just uh, you guys just be ready to help me out if I need it. But I’m going to take point from here.”

“I’ll keep the light on you,” Daylight said.

“Thanks. Door number two then?” Rainbow grimaced as she flew to the next door in line. She was sweating due to a mixture of the heat and anticipation.

The second door was much the same, a lava pool waiting only ten feet below the door. That’s all the room was, a simple shaft with bubbling lava at the bottom. Rainbow even took a brief look around it to make sure she wasn’t missing anything before closing the door back up. The next few doors proceeded the same way—the traps were all the same, pools of lava waiting for any pony not paying enough attention when they walked through. Rainbow Dash didn’t want to think about how many ponies had unfortunately met their fates here.

On the fifth door, the third from the right, they finally revealed something different. A decrepit looking path that was crooked and surrounded by crumbling walls that led into darkness. Daylight shined her light down the path and Rainbow Dash dropped to her hooves, being the first to walk down it and checking to make sure it was safe for the others.

“This is starting to look more like a natural cave than a temple,” Breakwater.

“Yeah. I don’t think this was ever a place of worship or somewhere most ponies from the civilization that built it entered,” Daylight said. “In fact, because there were traps practically right from the beginning, I would say this was actually a tomb or vault that the civilization put someone or something very important in. I’ve seen a decent amount of these, there’s only one true path and it should have a lot of obstacles in the way. Luckily for us, there are a lot of other ponies who would’ve removed those obstacles for us already.”

“But they still never got to the treasure,” Rainbow said.

Daylight nodded. “So at some point we’re going to have to get through something no one else ever has.”

The cave they were walking through grew warmer and up ahead Rainbow Dash saw light that was coming from a different source than Daylight’s horn.

“Careful, I think we’re getting closer to some lava again,” Rainbow said.

“Certainly feels like it...” Gilbert said as he sweated heavily through his feathers.

“You can say that again,” Breakwater agreed.

The left side of the cave opened up and the group of five found themselves on a narrow cliff over a river of lava below. Not only that, but streams of lava dripped out of holes higher up and poured into the river as it all flowed deeper into the heart of the volcano. The heat at this point was nearly unbearable for all of them, and the fact they had to practically push themselves flush up against the rock on the other side of the cliff to avoid tumbling down it only made it worse.

Rainbow Dash stepped forward and a piece of stone crumbled off the side of the cliff and rolled down it before falling into the lava river. “Okay… everyone watch your step. Seriously. And Gilbert? Be ready to grab someone if they slip.”

“Right,” Gilbert nodded.

Together the five of them very slowly walked along the cliff. Rainbow Dash would’ve loved just flying right now but she had to make sure the ground was stable for everybody else. Luckily it wasn’t long before the cave returned to normal and they left the lava river behind. From ahead of them now a breeze of air came, slightly cooler than the rest of the volcanic heat they had been walking through.

“I think we’re coming to a big chamber,” Rainbow Dash said. “One without lava this time.”

“I think you’re right,” Daylight said and nodded at something above their heads.

Rainbow Dash looked up and saw they were about to walk through what was another sculpted archway. Once they did so, the ground and walls became far smoother and thanks to Daylight’s spell she could see several statues of headless ponies placed in recesses along the walls.

“Okay, that’s a little creepy,” Rainbow said.

“I wonder if they were always headless or if they broke?” Breakwater wondered aloud.

“I don’t know, but don’t touch them, they could be traps too. You hear that, Gilbert?” Daylight said.

“I wasn’t going to...”

“Sure you weren’t.”

“Hey, hallway’s starting to open up,” Rainbow said.

They quieted down and with another few steps they emerged from the eerie hallway into a massive chamber—so big that Daylight’s spell couldn’t illuminate the ceiling and the far walls. All they saw for sure right now was the floor stretching out in front of them and the walls behind them. The air was far cooler in here and almost pleasant. But there was a distinct feeling of stagnation and death hanging around it as well. All of them could sense it even if the chamber was still yet a mystery to them.

“Hang on, I’ll light this place up in a second,” Daylight said and pushed more magical power into her horn.

The light at the tip of her horn grew stronger but instead of just sitting on her horn it also shot up into the sky like a flare. It rose higher and higher until finally the ceiling was illuminated and then it sat up there, shining down on the entire chamber and acting like a miniature indoor sun. Now with the entire chamber visible almost as well as if they were out in the sun, the party’s collective jaws dropped at what they saw.

Along the far wall of the chamber was an intricately carved and sculpted series of buildings—built right into the volcanic rock. They climbed from floor to ceiling despite there being no stairs or any other way besides flight for anyone to reach higher up. The buildings created the facsimile of a city street—the doorways right across from them going into nothing. It was like a stage, a set for a play. It stretched hundreds of feet in both directions and even with Daylight’s spell they couldn’t see where it ended from here. As the five approached the wondrous creation, Rainbow Dash noticed that every now and then a horizontal slit was carved into the walls, at every elevation she started seeing these. And it looked like something had been placed inside the shallow slits. Only when they got closer did she realize what it was.

Mummified remains of ancient ponies, nearly nothing but dust and bones piled up inside the slits.

“I see now. This whole place isn’t some temple, it’s a mausoleum,” Daylight said.

“At least the adventurers and archaeologists who reached this far before us had the decency to not disturb those resting here,” Gilbert said, exhaling deeply.

“May they continue to rest in peace,” Senax closed her eyes and nodded.

“Yeah that’s all well and good… but we’ve still got to go in further, don’t we? I mean, this isn’t exactly a golden treasure or anything like that,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Yes. There must be more to this place than just this one chamber—otherwise so many ponies wouldn’t have failed to make it back out,” Senax said.

“So we’ve still got more to explore,” Rainbow said and looked to her left and right. “Which way?”

“Hm… if I haven’t gotten turned around or anything then that way-” Daylight said as she pointed to the right. “Goes to the outside wall of the volcano, and there shouldn’t be much room for anything else there. But down to our left the chamber should continue into the heart of the volcano and probably leads to many more places.”

“Left it is,” Rainbow Dash shrugged and started walking.

Overhead—Daylight’s artificial sun slowly weakened in intensity while she started emitting her normal flashlight light from her horn again. They stayed mostly along the sculpted wall of buildings, following it until they found something new.

“Everyone still needs to be careful, we don’t know what else could be in here,” Daylight said.

“I’m going to assume more lava at some point,” Gilbert said.

Daylight rolled her eyes. “That goes without saying.”

Eventually they reached a point where the wall of “buildings” stopped and curved around, to the inside of the volcano, and into a new chamber of pillars going from floor to ceiling. They were built without any sort of plan, no set rows, no regular distance between each other, it was more like a forest of random stone pillars than what you would see in a normal building. Cautiously, Rainbow Dash took point and started to lead them through the strange maze of pillars. A lot of them were cracked, rocks lay strewn about the floor, and a few pillars had broken entirely and had fallen down or were leaning against each other.

“I don’t understand this at all...” Breakwater said.

“Imagine going through here without any light, or only a single torch,” Daylight said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few adventurers got lost in here. I think it’s designed to disorientate ponies. There might be traps waiting behind some of the pillars too.”

“No question of that,” Gilbert said and pointed at a boulder lying stuck between two pillars. “Daylight, would you turn your light up at the ceiling for a second?”

She did so and the rest of them saw a broken chain hanging high overhead, right above the boulder.

“As I suspected. That boulder was being held up by that chain at some point—whether through time or being tripped in some other way it crashed to the floor.”

“Then...” Daylight grimaced and shone her light across the rest of the ceiling. More and more broken chains were discovered, and a quick glance down showed the boulders that were once connected to them. “Well… I think we’re actually a little lucky. The traps here have all been tripped by prior visitors.”

“Just like we figured some would be,” Breakwater said.

“Let’s keep walking,” Rainbow said. “These pillars can’t go on forever.”

“Yes… but at some point we’re going to come across a trap or barrier that no one else has gotten through. I think from here on out we need to be extra careful,” Daylight said.

Because they were being extra careful it took longer than they had wanted it to before they had actually made it through the forest of pillars. The one good thing about the experience was that it was proof that they were going in the right direction. The more important treasure or tombs had to be deeper behind these traps and obstacles. And in the end the five of them were standing before a wide open floor in a chamber just past the pillars—but they had paused before crossing due to the number of holes in the floor where the oppressive heat and glow of lava was bubbling up from.

“It looks like the floor breaks open if you step in the wrong spot,” Daylight said.

“And leads to a lava bath below,” Gilbert added.

Rainbow Dash just shrugged as she looked at it. “Well big deal? I guess these ponies didn’t have pegasi in mind when they came up with these traps. Gilbert and I can just fly the rest of you across. It’s not that far, I can see the next hallway on the other side.”

“Oh. Good point,” Daylight blinked.

“Come on, let’s go!” Rainbow Dash grinned and grabbed the unicorn before she could protest. Gilbert grabbed Breakwater and had Senax ride on his back, and together the party of five easily made their way past this obstacle.

Comments

[Stalin with Da Spoon]

Dang, it's taking her this long to get around the world?

Pretty sure an F-35 could move around the world faster than her.

Anyways, good stuff.

[redmar]

The mausoleum inside the volcano is certainly interesting. I wonder what they will find since it's clear that whatever those traps are guarding is still inside.