Daring Do and the Crown of Ages

by Fedora

Hunting Down the Journal

Daring Do snuck around the edge of the docks, hiding behind a stack of wooden crates and lowering her pith helmet over her head. She would peek her snout out over the very edge of the crates and glance at the position of the pony with the hat, who had pilfered through her hotel room and taken some of her valuables, among her grandfather’s whip and her own personal journal.

The stallion paced the wooden pier, heading back onto the cement slab of ground and over to the edge of the adjacent building: a warehouse. Daring tried her luck, and silently followed, entering through a hole in the ill-repaired roof. The adventuress stood in the rafters of the warehouse, looking down to the dealing happening below.

The stallion and two other ponies were speaking with a Gryphon, dressed in a military uniform. She couldn’t hear the words exactly, so she inched herself closer until she could along the wooden boards.

“.... lots of profit from the Gryphon government. We’ve already established a presence, we just haven’t made it public yet.”

The wooden board cracked, and Daring felt a sinking feeling as she dropped down forcefully, landing on the back of the hat-wearing stallion and pinning him to the ground. He cried out in alarm, and the Gryphon was pegged with the broken piece of wood from the rafters.

With her plan on singling the pony out quietly foiled, Daring’s mind raced for a way to salvage her botched plan. As it was, she came up short, so she went with the first and most obvious thing that came to mind.

“What did you do with my things?!”

The stallion gagged under her weight, and she pressed a hoof down over his throat.

“Where are they?!” she exclaimed again, looking into his terror-struck eyes forcefully.

A gun clicked. Daring froze, moving her head up to look at the Gryphon and two armed ponies standing in a line, barrels trained on her. She slowly got off from the stallion’s chest.

Think, Daring

“Uhh... here, let me help you,” she said, holding out a hoof and helping the stallion to his legs. She scooped up his hat, which had crushed in on itself.

“You dropped this,” she said, holding the hat up. As the angry stallion reached for it, she shoved the hat into his face and punched through the crown, tearing the felt and slugging him in the face. She shoved the stallion into his armed friends just as they shot, causing their stream up bullets to spray skywards as the guns dropped in the confusion.

Daring ducked out of the way, over a stack of crates and out of sight. Immediately, the ponies with the guns began searching for her, leaping over the crates. When she wasn’t there, they ran after her down the rows of crates in the dimly lit warehouse.

She reached into her jacket pocket for her pistol, hearing the sound of hooves striking the concrete as the guards chased after her. Daring dived over a stack, and heard the sounds of gunfire over her head. A light fixture exploded in a shower of sparks.

Daring wheeled around the corner, firing two tightly aimed shots and knocking the armed ponies to the ground. She dashed around and up over their bodies as she heard an engine revving behind her. Somepony had gotten into a forklift!

The forklift was being driven by the red stallion, who wore his crushed and broken hat despite the damage. He barreled down the aisle of crates after the pony, who weaved out of the way to the left.

The forklift swerved to the left, striking a crate containing bags of flour and causing them to explode over both the forklift and Daring. She shook her mane and rubbed at her face, continuing to run towards the exit.

“Get the armed guards from the south side, GO GO GO!” somepony shouted. Daring exited the warehouse and out into the night air just in time to see a group of armed unicorns raising their guns in a magical glow. She dove over the edge of the wooden pier and into the ocean’s waters as the guns opened fire with an explosive sound, churning the surface of the water alive with a rattle of bullets.

“Can you see her?” somepony shouted,

“Negative, no visual.”

The water calmed for a moment, allowing chunks of flour and seawater to rise to the surface, stained red.

“We’ve got blood... we got her.”

“Get the boat ready to cast off, before the police arrive. We’ve got to put a lot of distance between the cargo and this place, and fast.”

****

The boat blew its whistle, heading out to sea. Dusty watched from the same position, sighing. Daring still hadn’t come back, and he had heard quite a lot of weapons fire. He didn’t want to assume the worst, but...

There she was! At that moment a very soggy pony was pulled out of the seawater on a long chain. The metal anchor splashed out of the briny waves, and there was Daring Do hanging onto the chain while standing on the top of the anchor, clutching at her wing. She looked towards Dusty and raised her free hoof in a saluting motion, grinning through gritted teeth. She shimmied up the rest of the length of the chain, reaching the edge of the ship and leaping up onto the side.

****

Daring tore a piece of cloth from one of the lifeboat covers off, and wrapped it around her wing. Hours had passed since her departure from the Prench harbor, and it was now the middle of the night. She had been shot in the wing as she tried to escape into the water, and though she had removed the bullet, she wanted to bandage the extremity to prevent herself from instinctively using it and risk tearing the wound open again.

The night was cool, and as Daring left her safe hiding spot from inside of the lifeboat she could see the watchpony sitting in a chair on the stern deck. She was drinking a bottle of wine and reading in the light of a lantern.

Daring silently moved towards the bow end of the ship.

If I were holding onto somepony else’s valuables, where would I keep them? she thought to herself. Probably not the cargo bay. Daring felt that the safest place for something high-profile like the journal would have to be as close to herself as possible.

I’ll have to check the Captain’s quarters.

****

The door opened rather easily, and without a great deal of noise. Daring closed the great metal door behind herself, and struck a match, holding the wooden end between her teeth.

In the low orange light of the match’s flame, she scanned the cabin quickly. The captain himself was not present, and as such his bunk was empty. Daring peered in at the table upon which much of the captain’s personal effects were kept. There was a picture frame of himself, a swarthy Gryphon in black uniform, and his white-feathered wife. There was a mish-mash of papers on the table, an armband, and a map that was still spread open and marked up.

Beneath the table was a box, and sure enough, Daring could see the handle of the whip sticking out over the edge. She bent in to snatch it up, but was forced to spit out the match as the flame burned too low. As she reached for another out of her shirt pocket, she heard a noise. The door was opening.

Captain Gottlieb was dog tired. He had been down partying with the crew, and perhaps drank too much Prench wine. It had really gone to his head now, as he was stumbling about and seeing double. He staggered over to his bed and sat down on it, feeling something uncomfortable beneath it. He ignored it as a stiff mattress and tried to readjust.

When that didn’t work, he stood himself up, stumbling over to the table and igniting an oil lamp.

“I...hic....I need to count sheep or read... hic....that’s it.”

The captain took the first book he saw, which coincidentally happened to be Daring’s journal. From below the bed, Daring watched with a sense of horror as the overweight drunk Gryphon began rifling through her pages, reading some of them aloud in a drunken stupor.

“Feburry twenny sis,” he read, “1927. I journ... uh... journeyed out to the tip ....of the cape this morning an’ found that the temmle had been disturbed in the night,”

The invisibility veil! Daring recalled.

“I... hic... I ennerred the temple anyways and discovered that... hic... that the ponies who had come during the night had ac.... ac...ivated the traps, making my entry more hassirdus by the prolif... whatever... metal spikes.”

The captain tossed the book aside, and sat down.

“What a load of garbage..... hic... If I were exploring... I... hic.. I wouldn’t go somewhere where there’s spikes...”

He continued to sputter incoherent language for a few minutes before his head rolled back and he started to snore, allowing Daring the opportunity to make her exit, her items in tow.

****

Daring snapped the metal container over her journal, hoping that it would keep the pages dry. She hurled herself up and over the edge of the railing, keeping her legs as straight as possible to keep her splash quiet as she sank beneath the waves.

It was morning. The ship sat in the harbor of one of Carpathia’s seaside communities, and the agitated searching for the journal had told Daring that she needed to make her exit. From underneath the dark waves, Daring swam over to a different dock, dodging tangles of seaweed. From there she dragged herself out of the water and onto the wooden dock, avoiding the gaze of anypony who might have seen her.

On the boat, the Captain was furious. Not only had he woken up to a tremendous headache, but he also had lost the archaeologist’s journal from right beneath his beak. He had determined that it was unlikely that any crewmember had taken it, as only he was to have know of it’s existence onboard. The pony must have gotten onboard and gotten ahold of the journal.

With a harsh squawking quality to his voice the Captain barked orders to his crewmembers. He described the pony Daring Do: a dark yellow pegasus with a dark mane and a pith helmet. The crew turned the entire ship inside-out. No Daring.

She had gone into the town, thought the Captain, We’ll make sure she can’t leave.

Comments

[Borg]

She reached into her jacket pocket for her pistol

I don't remember you mentioning that existing before.