Daring Do and the Curse of the Lost Tomb

by Fedora

Chapter 11: The Frozen North

Cold air blew around Daring, Scootaround and Audacity as they mounted the hill. The air was frigid and sharp. The wind blowing down the hill blew bits of snow that speckled their rosy cheeks and made them colder. The cold was almost unbearable, and quite unforgiving. Having no extra layers of clothing to provide warmth, Daring knew that it was imperative that they find a source of heat or find insulation, or both.

They had been meaning to touch down at the nearest air strip, only to find out that the northernmost village closest to their destination had nothing of the sort. Instead, Daring had “landed” the plane in a flat area at the base of a rather tall hill. She hoped it wasn’t too badly damaged from the rough landing, but she felt she had done alright for somepony who had never flown an aircraft before. Aerial maneuvering came naturally as a pegasus, but controlling a machine meant to fly had been something much more difficult.

“It’s just at the top of this hill!” Daring assured Scootaround, turning back to encourage the filly with a smile. She saw Audacity a few steps behind, clutching his hat for dear life while his teeth chattered.

“I-i-it’s s-s-so cold!” he stuttered, “h-h-how much further?”

“Up here, we’re almost there!” encouraged Daring. She could already see the rising columns of smoke from the village. It was very lucky for them that it was at the base of the mountain they wanted to climb. Daring’s plan was to set up for the night in an inn or something, and then brave the big mountain the next day with some gear and proper clothing. No doubt they could buy some from the locals, there had to be some kind of overcoat shop in this climate.

“I think I can see it,” Scootaround called out, blinking her eyes in the wind. She had just barely noticed the rising smoke as well.

“When we get there, let me do the talking. We’ll get a room of some kind, in an inn or something,” Daring said, “I’ll handle getting us some supplies, you two stay in the room.”

“I’ll c-c-come and h-h-help you buy s-s-stuff,” chattered Audacity through his teeth, “I h-h-have money.”

“Thanks,” Daring replied, “but I’d like to actually make the errands myself. I can’t say there’s going to be trouble, but then again, I can’t say there won’t be any trouble. We need to be careful if CAP’s also in the area.”

****

Bright orange light from the fire glowed brightly as the day waned away. The skies grew dark outside, but the spirits of the ponies inside grew brighter and brighter. Scootaround was stretched out on the carpet, snoring in the comfortable warmth of the cabin. Audacity placed a log into the center of the flames quickly, and returned to fiddling with his hat. After some drying and re-shaping, he had gotten the styling back into the shape he liked it in: tight front crease, narrow dent down the center of the top, and with deepend side dents. He was a bit fussy about how his hat was styled, it had to be just in the right shape.

The cabin was comfortably small, yet homely. Audacity was glad Daring had been able to negotiate these accommodations for them just outside of the main village square. No doubt she was on her way back now with whatever warm clothing she could purchase. Audacity had given her some of his bits so she didn’t have to settle for the bare minimum. He had felt freezing going from the plane’s clumsy landing site to the village, a hike that wasn’t much more than a mile. He didn’t much care to repeat the experience the following day.

At that moment, Daring swung open the door, and a blast of cold wind blew inside. The pony struggled to lug a pile of clothing in, and toppled it down onto the floor along with a full travel bag. She kicked the door closed behind her and turned to fasten the latch. The sudden commotion had awoken Scootaround from her temporary slumber, and she began poking at the pile Daring had set down on the wooden floorboards.

“Ok, so I’ve got some different garments here,” Daring said, “most of which are wool. Wool’s probably your best bet in cold weather like this anyways, despite being a little itchy.”

“Why’s that? What’s wrong with cotton?” Audacity asked, raising an eyebrow. Daring shook her head sadly.

“C’mon Audacity, I thought you were in the Foal Scouts. You should know this stuff!”

“I didn’t go camping in the winter, because my troop went out southwest on hiking trips instead. What am I missing?”

“Well, cotton’s actually a pretty bad insulator in this kind of weather,” explained Daring, “It’s soft alright, but if it gets wet it’ll stay wet and make you cold. Wool won’t do that. Insulation is the key.”

“Oh,” Audacity remarked, “Ok then.”

“What’s in the bag?” Scootaround asked excitedly, poking at Daring’s travel bag with a hoof.

“Dinner,” Daring stated, “It’s some ingredients to make some sandwiches and warm soup. You can help me if you want, I need somepony to keep an eye on the soup and stir it.”

“Yeah!” Scootaround said, pumping her hoof. She rarely got the chance to help cook.

“What about tomorrow’s provisions?” asked Audacity, flipping open the bag and frowning. There were only supplies to make sandwiches and soup for that night only.

“We’ll cross that hurdle in the morning,” replied Daring, “I’m not so worried about it right now. How were things here while I was out?”

“Fine,” Audacity stated, “Scoots took a nap and I worked on getting my hat back in the right shape. Water is not a hat’s friend.” Daring shook her head, smiling to herself.

“That’s not a good hat to be wearing out in this kind of stuff. It’s a city hat, no really meant for being abused by the elements.”

“What would you suggest?” Audacity asked with a raise of his eyebrows. Daring shrugged, while beginning to slice vegetables on the cutting board that was already inside the cabin near the sink.

“I’ve had this same pith helmet for years, and it hasn’t quit on me yet. It’s been abused in just about every way imaginable: it’s been singed, scorched, buried, shot with arrows, pierced with spear heads, nearly crushed, used as a projectile, ripped, caked with mud, crushed, and it still comes back fighting after a little bit of repair work. I’ve probably replaced just about everything on it piece by piece.”

“Woah,” Audacity reacted, “how does it not just fall apart or deteriorate?”

“Pith helmets are made out of tough stuff. The pith inside them is kind of like a cork of some kind, only a bit tougher and more durable. It’s solid and firm, but not like metal.”

She finished slicing the vegetables, and placed them between slices of bread along with some cheese and lettuce. They were crudely made and definitely not living up to Daring’s reputation of being good at cooking camp food, but it was good enough for the three growling stomachs. Scootaround poured ladle-fulls of tomato soup into separate wooden bowls, and carried them over to the countertop.

“There’s a whole bunch of extra,” she stated, motioning of the pot of soup that was sitting near the fire to stay warm.

“You can probably get seconds for each of us out of what’s left,” Daring said between mouthfuls of her sandwich. The other two ponies grabbed theirs, and bowls of soup. All three were happily chowing down in no time.

After dinner was completed and cleaned up, the three sat around the fire while discussing the day’s events a little bit. The hope was to get a plan together for the next day, but Daring began the conversation by reflecting on what had already occurred.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you two the way I did earlier,” she said, “but I wanted to impress on you that it’s not alright for you to disobey me like that. I had a very good reason for telling you to remain behind, and when you chose to come anyways you nearly got killed.”

“I’m sorry Dr. Do,” Scootaround chimed in.

“It’s alright, kid, I’m past that now.” She added a weak smile for good measure. Her mind was beginning to wander to other things, such as the recurring nightmares she was having about the tomb and the foreboding presence of the pendant. She tried to distract herself through the banter.

“ By the way, what’s the full scoop on how you two got here? Something about hiring Burly?”

“Erm, I sought Burly Withers because he was one of the archaeologists mentioned to me-” Audacity began, before Daring cut him off.

“Stop right there,” she said with a smirk, “did you just call Burly an archaeologist? You know he’s not actually one, right?”

“Alright, ‘freelance treasure seeker’. Anyways, he said he knew you, and that he’d be interested in helping to find the tomb once I explained the story.”

“I do know Burly,” commented Daring, “I saved his back once. We were pinned down by some of Ahuizotl’s predator friends in an alley, and one of them was right about to... well, let’s just say Burly would have met a very grisly end if I hadn’t fought that tiger.”

“You fought a tiger?” exclaimed Audacity in disbelief. Scootaround also wore a shocked expression, though hers was at the notion that one would question whether or not Daring had fought a tiger. Daring Do had done some pretty crazy-sounding things.

“Ayup, got scratched up pretty badly before he was down for the count. Poor beast.”

Audacity laughed. The stories were really beginning to intrigue him, and he made a mental note to ask about more of Daring’s exploits and adventures. Before he asked, however, it was time to shift focus and talk about the following day.

“Alright, so I’ll get up early in the morning to go get supplies for breakfast,” Daring said, “Then as soon as we’re done we need to get going. I have some hat liners, scarves, snow boots for each of your hooves, and overcoats. You’ll want those. It’s not too far to the base of the mountain, but it’s a long climb to even get to the base of the ruins. I’m sure the section we’re after is a bit higher still, in one of the caves. We’ll go in, find the information, and get out. We’ll stay that night here again, then worry about finding burly and getting back to Equestria.”

“What about CAP? What if they’re up on the mountain tomorrow?”

“They’ve probably been up there today looking. They’ll be past the actual area with any luck, and we’ll sneak in and out behind them. They don’t have the pendant, either.”

“Pendant?”

“This thing,” Daring explained, taking the item in question out from around her neck beneath her shirt and showing it to Audacity. The firelight gave the emerald in the center a bit of a glow. Even as she stared at it, the same voice started up in the back of her mind and she felt a cold chill run down her spine.

Return it.

“It’s kind of a key, I guess,” Daring said with a shake of her mane, “works as a part of each area’s puzzle to reveal the next location.”

“And what about Burly? Suppose they bring him up to the mountain?”

“They won’t. He’s locked in a room somewhere here in town, I bet.” She paused for a moment, and added an aside.

“I don’t want either one of you going into the village. I saw two CAP agents already, luckily they didn’t recognize me in my disguise. They’re here in the village alright.”

She sighed. The stress from the previous day and the sleepless night before in Stalliongrad was getting to her. She hadn’t slept at all since setting out to go to the Hoofiet Union, and the fatigue was really getting to her now. Worse yet, she felt almost afraid to lie down to sleep. Ever since she had learned about the pendant’s origin she had been plagued by nightmares and horrific images in her sleep. All she saw in her sleep was death and decay, and the pendant floated before her during all of this. It did and didn’t seem to be the source of all this at the same time. It was trying to draw her onwards, to spur her to bring it back so that it could help somehow.

She saw Audacity nodding off as he sat off to the side in one of the chairs. Scootaround was curled up on the floor in front of the fire, sleeping soundly already. Daring got down onto the warm planks next to her, and closed her eyes reluctantly.

****

At about midday the following day the group had reached the edge of the ruins. They were three fourths of the way up the mountainside, and had been travelling since the wee hours of the morning. In contrast to their first hike, they were more worn from the travel, but were warmer and better equipped to continue. Each pony had their own scarf, boots and overcoat to warm up with. Since it was around midday, they decided to break for lunch.

The ruins began showing themselves as building pieces and broken materials embedded in the mountainside. Old boards and stone corners poked out from the spiraling cliff faces, and the long-buried tops of roofs could be seen poking out from under blankets of snow. What they could see of actual buildings were mostly scattered and in poor repair. They had a very medieval look about them, which was more recent than when the Arabic empire’s pegasus remnants had assimilated into the culture. It had thrived for some time, even into the existence of Equestria.

As she ate wrapped oat bars and drank from a thermos of hot cocoa she had brought to share with the others, Daring thought about where the cave could possibly be. There had been no exact location nor riddling clues given to aid her search, so it had to be totally based on her own conclusions. By her logic, the cave would be disguised inside or beneath another structure. The previous two locations had been like that, and she was sensing a pattern.

If it was beneath a structure, then the structure would have been built by the immigrants to the society, or at the very least descendants of them. After all, if they wanted to hide a secret map room or a bunch of puzzles to unlock a clue leading to the location of their old society (and their leader’s lost tomb) they would not have entrusted the tasks to regular old pegasi. It was a reasonable assumption, and one she believed she could go off of.

“Hey Dr. Do, what’s that?” asked Scootaround, interrupting her train of thoughts. Daring raised her head to glance at where she was pointing, but found her only nudging at the thermos.

“Oh, it has some cocoa. Want some?”

“Yeah!” Scootaround exclaimed, “Yes please!”

Daring poured a cup of the hot liquid into Scootaround’s cup, which was a mug scavenged from an old Equestrian Army mess kit from the Great War era. She had a bunch of surplus supplies from that still kicking around in her gear, most of which retained the black “REAF” initials. (Which stood for Royal Equestrian Armed Forces) Her father had served, and he had given most of his old stuff to her.

The filly gulped down the cocoa in just two gulps, smiling happily with a ring of chocolate around her mouth. Daring shook her head.

“Wipe that off, you look ridiculous,”

“Daring,” Audacity began, crumpling up the paper wrapping from his lunch and tossing it aside on the ground, “I was thinking about where this place might be...”

“So was I, but we’ll talk about it after you pick up your trash.”

“Ah, who cares, it’s just a bit of-”

“I care. This is a set of ruins, not a dumping ground,” Daring insisted, “show a little respect.”

“Fine,” Audacity said with a roll of his eyes. He bent over to scoop the piece of paper wrapping up off the ground and stowed it away in the pocket of his overcoat.

“Ok, so what I think we should do is start looking at the building styles,” Daring said, “the one we’re looking for will stand out. It must’ve been constructed by the arabian empire’s emigrants that came here.”

“Wait, I thought we were looking for caves or something.”

“I’m guessing beneath the structure, or built into the side of the mountain.”

****

Broken Bank stepped beneath the low profile of a doorway, into the building. Or what was left of it anyways. Various items lined the now empty shelves of what appeared to be a storage building, including shovels and wheelbarrows. Nothing of great value.

“Not much in here,” he called, stepping back out. CAP had gotten a head start and was already picking apart the ruins atop the mountainside. Raiding them for valuables was more of a side-mission, but in the process of going through each building they hoped to discover a passage of some kind.

“What about you, did you find anything?”

A group of several CAP agents poked their heads out of the adjacent structure, nodding. They were dressed in red wool jackets to protect against the cold. Broken Bank went inside quickly, wanting to see what it was they had found that could possibly be of value.

Inside the building, which at one time had been a law enforcement building of some kind, was several sets of armor. They weren’t on display, nor were they in any kind of bad condition. Broken Bank looked at them carefully with a large grin on his face.

“This is good,” he said, “Elise is on the ship right now. Radio up to her and have her bring it around. Keep looking once it’s loaded on.”

Overall, the haul had been good so far. Spears, armor, ornate chairs and even chandeliers had been found intact, and the was likely a lot more stuff to raid from these ruins. It was music to his ears. If they were lucky, they would be able to offset their losses from their trip to Stalliongrad and the fiasco with the truck. Broken Bank wasn’t too worried. Daring Do and her cohorts were shut up down in some old mausoleum, trapped. Burly Withers was inside the airship, as his prisoner. Nopony stood in his way now.

“Captain Bank...” crackled the radio strapped to the bearded pony’s chest. He glanced down at it. He was glad to have invested in purchasing these radio sets, though a new and expensive technology it made communication much easier.

“Bank here,” he answered, pressing the button down on the radio set to transmit.

“We have a potential lead on the marker. We’re North of your position, care to investigate?”

“Alright, I’ll be right up in a minute,” Broken Bank answered. He set the radio back into it’s pouch, and spoke to the other agents he was with.

“I’m heading up to check on a possible lead. If anypony tries to mess with our operation, stop them. Use lethal force if possible. Got that?”

“Yes, sir!”

****

Daring was also poking her head inside the remains of buildings from the lost pegasi city. However her actions were purely motivated by a desire to find the marker, rather than to loot the place. So far she had not come across any kind of passage, and not many of the buildings fit the style she was looking for anyways.

Something felt different about these ruins than the others. Perhaps it was the cold climate, but things felt much more... desolate. It wasn’t creepy like the abandoned town was, it was just more... sad.

Audacity and Scootaround were in a building opposite hers, having to maneuver in an odd way due to a rock that had jutted into the side. She decided to go and check in on how they were doing. Stepping back out into the windy cold, Daring walked across the bare snow towards the structure. Though muffled by the wind, Daring heard the sudden sound or a loud crack. The snow by her hoof exploded in a puff as a hot bullet streaked into the ground. Somepony was shooting!

Alarmed, she dashed the remaining distance to the doorway, crouching inside. Still ringing in the air were still more gunshots, firing in rapid succession. Bullets pinged and bounced dangerously off the threshold.

“Who’s shooting?” gulped Scootaround, pressing herself against the wall. Audacity looked angered.

“It must be those CAP ponies. Why, If I had a weapon...”

“Don’t be silly, Audacity, they’d hit you before you’d have the chance,” Daring whispered. She heard another sound crunching through the snow, bearing the unmistakable signature of hooves stepping in the snow. Daring held a hoof to her own mouth and glanced back at the other two, motioning for them to remain absolutely silent.

Quickly, Daring reached one of her front hooves back to her hip. As she did this, the CAP agent came into view in the distance. He (or she, one couldn’t tell with the thick clothing) was glancing quickly from the exterior of one structure to the other. He sometimes rested his gaze on large snow-covered boulders. While he couldn’t see Daring yet, she knew he would look in her building first, having seen her dart across.

A small chipped stone laid on the icy surface of the ground inside the remains of a long lost structure. Daring narrowed her eyes. Kicking the stone in a large arc, she made it strike a haphazardly placed boulder. The snow covering the rock shuddered, and the motion made the CAP agent point his gun to the boulder suddenly. Lunging into motion, Daring uncoiled her whip and made a quick, reaching grab with the end. It wrapped around the muzzle of the gun suddenly with a crack. Daring yanked her end and the weapon flew out of the pony’s hooves as he gasped. The gun clattered to the ground below Daring, and she slid it backwards behind her. She heard a click as Audacity picked it up suddenly, and he moved forwards next to her, leveling the gun at the CAP agent.

“Wait, don’t shoot!”

“Hooves in the air, where I can see them!” shouted Audacity, walking out while holding the gun in place. The CAP agent obliged quickly.

“Please,” he whimpered, “Don’t shoot! I was just following orders!”

“Calm down,” Daring said, “Cooperate and you’ll be fine.”

“Okay...”

Daring circled the stallion slowly, while Audacity kept his weapon raised. She wasn’t much in favor of this kind of barbaric treatment, but there were questions she needed answered, and the safety of her friends were potentially in jeopardy.

“Where’s Burly Withers?” Daring asked in a calm voice.

“I don’t know!”

“Lies, you know where he is,” Audacity asserted, poking the gun’s point in the back of the pony. He seemed to be playing ‘bad cop’, and Daring decided to use this to her advantage.

“Listen, I don’t know where he’s being held! Honest!”

“All I have to do is squeeze this trigger...” growled Audacity, jabbing the gun once more. Daring raised a hoof behind her back to motion to him.

“Alright, so you don’t know,” she said coolly, “but where do you think he might be?”

“I don’t know whether he’s in the airship or if he’s in the village, or if they brought him at all!”

“Airship?!” sputtered Audacity, “Where is the Airship?!”

“Somewhere in the sky. I’m not in charge of it.”

“Oh, sure, you just happen not to know anything,” Audacity mocked. He glanced at Daring’s signal out of the corner of his eye.

“Listen, I’m just an agent hired to move stuff and defend the site. I’m sorry for shooting at you, I was just following orders. I don’t know all of these secrets, only the ponies in charge like Elise or Broken Bank make those decisions!”

“Elise...” Daring murmured, gritting her teeth.

Whatever more interrogation that might have happened was cut short as Scootaround cried out. She had leaned against something on the bare stone wall, and a hidden switch opened up a spiraling stone staircase in the floor. She fell down step by step, bouncing her head and tail and crashing down somewhere far below.

“What the...” Daring stammered. It seemed so random, so out of the blue, yet it had just happened. By a complete and total accident, Scootaround had made a discovery.

“You all right, kid?”

“Dr. Do, come down here, quick!”

Comments

[Borg]

Use lethal force if possible.

That's harsh, man.

I warned you about stairs bro!!!!!! I also warned you about how Scoots always breaks ancient things. Every time. Except in Stalliongrad; she had to give Audacity a turn. But now he's had his fun, and the world can go back to its proper order.