Daring Do and the Hunt for the Hippogriff's Harp

by Tyrael

Chapter 4

July 6th, 2013
Deep in an underground cavern
Everfree Forest, Equestria

It had been a hectic, nerve-racking flight down through the chasm as Daring Do struggled to control their descent, bumping against stalagmites and other unseen obstacles in the darkness. Battered and bruised, Daring and Marion had been alarmed by a strange, red glow emanating from the depths ahead of them. Undaunted, they headed towards the light and entered a large, illuminated cavern where they crash landed into a field of colossal bioluminescent mushrooms. The mushrooms produced a crimson light and cast the entire area with an eerie glow.

They had crashed into one of the giant mushroom and their impact had left a small crater in the cap. The spongy flesh of the mushroom provided a welcome comfort to the beleaguered mares. Daring took deep breaths to calm herself down, then crawled over towards Marion, who was trying to break free of her entanglement.

"Are you okay?" Daring asked as she pulled at the ropes on Marion.

"I.. I think so," Marion said as they removed the last of the ropes. She sat up and winced as she stretched her wings. "I've got aches all over from hitting into rocks and such on the way down, but nothing serious, I hope. How about you?"

Daring felt a familiar presence missing for her head and glanced around the crater. "Aha!" she exclaimed as she spotted her helmet, which had been dislodged in the crash and dug itself into the side of the crater. Daring pulled her helmet out and inspected it, brushed off some mushroom flesh, then flipped it back onto her head and adjusted the brim. She winked at Marion and said, "I'm good."

Marion smiled back, then tilted her head as she listened to a sound that was rebounding across the cavern. It sounded like a faint whirring noise, and then the sound of multiple hooves striking against rock. "Please tell me you can hear this, Daring."

Daring grimly nodded as she coiled her whip and hung it back on her flank. "Yes. That would be the spec ops team that is after me, or us."

"Uh, spec ops? Like, military?"

"Yeah, special forces, although I don't believe they're with the Equestrian military," Daring explained.

"Could they be a rescue team?" Marion asked. "Our plane did get taken down."

"No. One of them tried to attack me, that's why I jumped down the hole with you," Daring said.

"So definitely not Equestrian military then... What do we do?" Marion asked.

Daring closed her eyes and listened to the echoes. "I know there's at least two of them, sounds like more, though."

Daring flew up above the mushroom and peered into the gloom. "We can keep going deeper into this cavern and try to lose 'em. Are you good to go?"

Marion flapped her wings and hovered alongside Daring. She felt some pain from her injuries, but not enough to cause her problems. "I'm ready, not going to be able to hit my top wing power, though."

"That's fine. Let's get moving," Daring said, then began to fly deeper into the cavern. The mushroom field continued for several hundred feet, and at the far side of the cavern Daring and Marion found a large lake, filled with small, translucent cavefish.

Daring warily looked back over her shoulder at the mushrooms and had an idea. "Wait here," she said to Marion.

Daring swiftly flew towards the beginning of the mushroom field, and gave one a powerful kick with her hind legs, resulting in a shower of spores. Daring darted between each mushroom and kicked it, and when she got back to Marion the cavern behind her was filled with a massive cloud of spores.

Daring smugly looked upon her handiwork and winked at Marion. "That should buy us some time."

"Awesome, good thinking! I took the liberty of checking out what was ahead, if we keep following the lake there is eventually a tunnel we can head down," Marion said.

Daring and Marion flew past the underground lake and found the tunnel Marion had spotted. The light from the mushrooms barely illuminated the area, so Daring grabbed some torches from her packs and lit them. As the pair continued into the darkness, Marion nervously commented, "I sure hope the weirdness of Everfree doesn't extend down here..."

"I would presume that it does," Daring said. "Those giant mushrooms can't be natural."

"Oh, right... Well, I'm worried we'll run into some horrid monster down here," Marion said, as she moved closer to Daring.

"If there was anything, it would probably be scared of us, or more precisely, our torches," Daring said. "Why, I remember this ancient labyrinth I was exploring once. My sources said that nopony had set hoof in it for thousands of years due to this immortal minotaur that was said to guard the treasure within. Now, I was really, really interested due to the claim that it had never been plundered, since that meant all the relics should be there. So, I set up an expedition, enticed a couple of university archaeology students to come along to boot. None of the locals would dare set foot near the place, so we just headed on in ourselves. Everything was going great, tons of Classical Age artifacts in pristine condition. Not even any dust or debris on them, which we thought was a bit strange, but shrugged it off."

Marion grinned. "The immortal minotaur was keeping it all clean, right?"

"Bingo. So we heard this dreadful roar and turned to see this big ol' minotaur bearing down on us with an axe. One of the students was a unicorn and had been using a light spell. He panicked at the sight of the minotaur and overcharged his spell which caused this blinding flash of light. The axe clattered to the ground and the minotaur screamed bloody murder and ran like Cerberus himself had come to drag him into Tartarus. You see, he'd been living in darkness for so long his eyes just couldn't stand the light, let alone that much light. We finished our dig without ever seeing him again."

"Hey, I think I've seen those artifacts you recovered from that labyrinth! Back when I was a filly, our museum had them on loan," Marion said. "Thanks for telling me that story, it makes me feel safer."

Daring smiled. "You're welcome."

As they continued through the tunnel, they could see glinting formations of crystals growing from all sides of the tunnel in the distance. As they began to fly through the crystals, they could see that many had been broken, as if a great beast had flown through the tunnel, and their shattered remains littered the ground. Daring bent down to inspect the broken crystal pieces and found layers of dirt upon them, suggesting they had been lying there for quite some time. Daring looked up at Marion, who was anxiously peering into the darkness ahead of them, and told her, "Don't worry, whatever it was that barreled through here and broke these things should be long gone. Decades ago, at least, judging by the amount of dust and dirt on these."

With the tale of an immortal minotaur fresh on her mind, Daring's words did little to comfort Marion, but she continued along despite her fears, staying at Daring's heels. As they continued through the tunnel, they entered a small chamber with openings in the ceiling and floor. Daring flew towards the floor to investigate the hole and backflipped away as a cloud of multicolored bats streamed upwards. Marion screamed and backed against the wall as the bats - which had green, leaf-like ears and patterns on their bodies to look like various pieces of fruit - continued to surge upwards. After a minute, the last of the bats vanished into the hole in the ceiling.

"What were those?" Marion asked, as she cautiously flew around the hole and caught up to Daring.

"Fruit bats. They'll be of no harm to you, unless you're made of fruit," Daring explained.

"Oh, thank goodness," Marion said. "They gave me quite the startle when they came flying up like that."

Daring laughed. "Yeah, I heard. We should follow them, they were probably headed to the surface to feed."

Daring and Marion flew towards the hole in the ceiling and began to explore. Around a hundred feet up, the walls began to close in, leaving a perfect passage for fruit bats, but much to small an opening for a pegasus or hippogriff. They flew back to the chamber and Daring rummaged through her packs, pulling out some carrots and cucumbers, which she shared with Marion.

"Which way should we try next?" Marion asked as she munched on the veggies.

Daring looked down into the hole in the floor, then nodded towards the tunnel. "We'll go this way, no telling if the other bat passageway will bottleneck like the upper one did. On the plus side, that bottom tunnel should occupy at least one of those spec ops ponies. They could be wandering through there for hours if we get really lucky."

"What do you think they want with you?" Marion asked.

"I've made many enemies over the years, most of which would love to see me dead or in their dungeon," Daring casually said. "Ahuizotl, greedy antiquities dealers, the Amethyst Corporation, corrupt archeologists, Crown Prince Rothoof, obscenely wealthy businessponies, Khan One-Eye, the Black Heart cult.... Those who seek artifacts for avaricious reasons don't really care for me and my policy of giving my finds to museums. Any one of them could have hired a mercenary crew to come after me."

"Geez... I don't know how you can live like that," Marion said. "If It was me, I would just hide in a safe room with armed guards watching me 24/7! I suppose there's more to you that is daring than just your name."

Daring laughed and crunched happily into a carrot as the pair nibbled at the rest of their dinner. After they finished the vegetables, Daring produced a hoofful of wrapped candies - Goatze's Caramel Creams. Enjoyed by generations since they were created by a family of Baltimarean baker goats in 1918, Caramel Creams are a delicious treat of soft, chewy caramel wrapped around a rich, creamy center.

Caramel Creams were one of Daring's favorite sweets, and Marion seemed quite taken with them as well. After finishing their dessert, they ventured onwards through the main tunnel. A few minutes later they began to hear the sounds of rushing water up ahead. Intrigued, they raced through the rest of the tunnel and discovered a wall of falling water blocking their path.

"A waterfall? What do we do now?" Marion asked.

"We need to fly through quick. Don't let the water push you down, since we don't know what's below," Daring said as she pulled a thing of matches out a pack and placed it in the liner of her helmet. She checked all her packs and satchels, making sure they were secured, and then went over Marion's. Confident their gear was ready, Daring told Marion to go first.

Marion flew back through the tunnel, then turned and accelerated, passing through the waterfall like a bullet. Daring did the same, one hoof holding the torch below her to try and shield it from the water, and the other firmly holding onto her beloved helmet. On the other side she found a merry Marion. "That was fun! Reminds me of when my family and I visited a water park in Las Pegasus."

Daring smiled at Marion and shook some of the water off of herself, then began to investigate their surroundings. They were in another large cavern which featured several waterfalls pouring down from the darkness above, producing a large lake at the bottom. Daring and Marion split up to search for any side tunnels leading out of the flooded cavern. As Marion flew along the outer wall, her heart skipped a beat as she saw a large object beginning to materialize in the gloom ahead. She soared towards the object and her lips drew back into a smile as she began to make out the lines of an airship, bobbing in the waters.

Marion joyfully yelled, "Daring! Please tell me you can see this too!"

Author's Note:

Mmm, Caramel Creams. I haven't had those in years, I'm sorry to say. I used to love those things. When I was first writing that bit I wanted them to get a little treat for dessert, and was going to use fruit, which they had earlier. Since they had just seen all the fruit bats, I vetoed that idea and just left it to the vegetables and moved on. A few days later I was talking to a friend and I don't know what made me think of the Caramel Creams, but when I saw they were made in Baltimore, I knew I had found the perfect treat.