• Published 27th Mar 2013
  • 1,990 Views, 201 Comments

The Death of Daring Do: The Engine of Eternity - DuncanR



Rainbow Dash takes the real-life archeologist Derring-Do on an adventure to heal her broken wing and mend her bitter spirit... but a deadly, unbreakable curse of death pushes them both to the limit.

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Part 12: "They need us to be here. It's just the cards we've been dealt."

Derring-Do and Rainbow dash walked along the village’s main path, side by side. Derring pointed at the end of the path up ahead. "The elder has agreed to lend us a guide who can lead through the jungle valley. He'll have no trouble keeping us fed and safe, and he knows the quickest route to the city. But as soon as we get close, he's going to leave us. There'll be no turning back after that, and there's no telling what we'll find when we arrive."

"Yeah... yeah. Hey, what do you think of that elder mare? Do you think we can trust her?"

"From what I've seen?" Derring adjusted her helmet. "I think so. These ponies trust her with more than just their lives. They attribute her with a spiritual awareness that borders on the supernatural... she's knowledgeable about fate and destiny and such."

"So if she gave you some advice...?"

"Well I don't know if I'd take it, but I'd be extremely foolish to ignore it completely."

Dash bit her lower lip. "...Even if it was bad advice?"

Derring smiled at her. "You should know that a 'wise-witch' always speaks in riddles. Their advice is always incredibly convoluted and every word has three different meanings, some of them quite subtle. Even if the advice seems bad, it might turn out well in the end."

"Yeah... subtle."

Dash's gaze wandered off to the side and she caught sight of a group of colts and fillies—they were the first group of children she'd seen since she arrived, and they were all laughing and chasing a ball.

"At least they know how to have fun," she said. "I was starting to worry."

"Oh, they have all sorts of games and festivals... we're just strangers who showed up in the middle of troubling events. That's all."

Dash watched as one of the colts kicked the ball straight up, and another did a nimble backflip and kicked it even higher. Dash's eyes widened as the children each took turns kicking the ball straight into the air, always with an acrobatic flourish.

"Geez... those kids have some nice kicks on 'em. Real nice kicks. What game is that?"

"They call it the 'game of life'," said Derring-Do. "The ball represents the world, and each kick represents the mark we leave upon it. The game ends when the ball touches the ground."

"How do you win?"

Derring shrugged. "It is not what they would call a 'winning game.' The ball will hit the ground eventually, no matter how hard they try. The objective is to make each kick as impressive as possible."

"That's pretty grim, don't you think?"

"Not at all," she said. "After all, nobody wins at life. We do what we can with the time we have left."

"Yeah," Dash muttered to herself, "real subtle."

"Ah, here we are." Derring walked to the end of the path and nodded to a particularly heavy-set stallion, bedecked in a particularly diverse array of charms and bangles. "Sain baina uu," she said.

The stallion nodded. "Bilän?" he said.

Derring turned to Dash. "Ready?" she said.

Rainbow Dash looked back at her and saw a strange new gleam in her eyes. It certainly hadn't been there a week ago. Let go, Dash thought to herself.

Derring-Do waved a hoof in her face. "Hey. You still there?"

"We're not ready for this."

"What? Why not? What else do we need?"

"This is too dangerous," she said, "and I think we're biting off way more than we can chew."

Derring stared back at her, still smiling, but with a touch of confusion.

"Look, you've gone through an awful lot of trouble because of me. You got chewed out by your boss, you almost exploded in a plane crash, and you almost died of malaria."

"It's fine, really," she said, "I've had malaria a couple of times before. It's not so bad after the first time. I mean, the first time really sucks, but after that—"

"And now we're going into a horrible cursed city to stop a creepy cult from activating a machine that could give them ultimate cosmic power. We don't even know anything about them!"

"The elder referred to them as the 'mad ones'."

"We don't know how many of them there are, or what kind of weird magic they might have. We don't know what sort ancient, cosmic doodads they might have found in the city... cosmic doodads they might use against us."

"But we have to do something, right? Right now, we're all they have. We're literally their only hope."

"Yeah. And maybe we could do it... but it might cost us more than we think." Rainbow Dash looked up at the mist-soaked canopy far above. "I think we need to let this one go."

Derring-Do's tail drooped. "You do?"

"We can still solve this problem," said Dash. She spread her wings wide and hovered a few feet off the ground. "Now that my wings are healed I can fly back to Canterlot and get help. I can gather all my friends, and the six of us can take care of this no problem."

"Your friends?" Derring-Do said. "What is this, a slumber party? Shouldn't you call the the royal guard, or the princess or something?"

"The first thing she'd do is tell me and my friends to go take care of it. Seriously... if the six of us get together, there's nothing we can't do."

Derring-Do stared at her. "Who are you, Rainbow Dash? Really?"

"I'll tell you about it when we get back. For now, you just stay here with the Dzunturan while I go back to Canterlot. It should take me three hours. Four, tops."

"Oh, and what am I supposed to do? Just sit here and be useless?"

"You can spend more time with the tribe," she said. "Think about it: it's a chance to study a lost tribe and learn more about their culture and language and stuff. I bet most archeologists only dream of that sort of opportunity!"

Derring-Do looked back at the village.

"I know you want to help," Dash said, "and you did. You figured out what's going on all by yourself. But now it's my turn. Please, Derring."

"No, you're right. You're completely right." Derring adjusted her helmet. "To be perfectly forthright, I've already had more than enough adventure to last me a lifetime. And if you genuinely believe that you and your friends can take care of this yourselves... well, the pragmatic thing is to leave it to the professionals."

"Thanks. I'm glad you understand." Rainbow Dash flew up higher. "Don't worry: I'll be back in three hours. Four, tops."

Derring waved up at her. "Wait! You can't go now!"

"I'll be fine," she said. "I can glide for hours, and find my way through any kind of storm. I'm a professional weather pony and a professional athlete!"

"What about a professional jungle explorer?" she called. "You'll get lost before you can leave the jungle, and you most certainly won't be able to find your way back here!"

"Oh... yeah." Rainbow Dash landed beside her. "Well, great. Now what?"

Derring-Do took out her journal, tore out a page, and passed it to Dash. "Here are the coordinates for where we are now, in latitude and longitude. When you come back, bring a commercial grade radio transmitter with you and send out a signal request on this frequency as you search over the mist. I still have my portable radio receiver right here: once I hear you, I'll fire off one of my flares."

"And how're we supposed to see it? There's no way that flare gun will reach the mist up above."

"It's a magical flare," she said. "Just figure out a way to detect magical energy signatures. I'm sure someone of your resourcefulness can find a way."

"Wow... you really are good at this." Rainbow Dash set a hoof on her shoulder. "Thank you. After my friends and I clean this up, I promise to tell everypony you were the one that made it all possible. You'll be shaking hooves with the princess by the end of the week."

Derring looked away, bashful. "That's not really necessary. But thank you."

"Not necessary? Are you kidding?" Rainbow Dash grinned at her. "Imagine the looks on the other professor's faces when they hear about it."

A smile crept over Derring-Do's face. "That... might actually be worth it."

Rainbow Dash nodded to their guide. "So, can you show me to the western edge of the jungle? Someplace where I can find my own way to the ocean?"

"Dalaj, örnö?" said Derring-Do.

The guide watched her for a moment. "Dalaj?" He said.

Derring-Do nodded. "Dalaj, örnö. Bätu."

The guide nodded to her. He took up an enormous golden mask with a great shaggy mane that covered his neck and shoulders. The sculpted face gleamed and glittered brightly, even in the murky light of the noonday sun. He ran off into the jungle at a brisk pace, and Dash and Derring followed after him.


They spent the next six hours running through the jungle. Rainbow Dash flew overhead in relative ease and comfort, and their guide showed no sign of fatigue. Derring-Do, despite her great strength, had to rest every fifteen minutes or so to catch her breath. They drank water almost constantly, using huge leaves to collect dew and moisture. When they stopped for lunch their guide effortlessly scrounged up a bounty of succulent, star-shaped fruits and dark-green leaves. There was little conversation: Derring-Do had an oddly determined mood about her, and Dash had no desire to press the issue.

The floor of the jungle gradually became more and more dense, with shrubs and smaller trees blocking their way. At last, their guide led them halfway up a steep hill and stopped to look back at them.

"Finally," said Rainbow Dash. "I don't know why we had to bring you along, though... I could have followed him at top speed without any trouble."

Derring made her way up the hill. "We'd better get moving."

"We? Oh, no you don't. You're going straight back to the village."

Derring-Do rolled her eyes and continued climbing.

Rainbow Dash flew up to the top of the hill and came to an opening in the forest wall. The valley stretched before her, without any of the giant trees to blot out the sky. A vast, sprawling city covered the ground for miles, nestled between two enormous mountain ranges: the buildings and highways were built out of gold-colored stone and packed so closely together that no patch of earth could be seen. Pyramids, towers, and temples reached for the sky. Clusters of cube-shaped houses grew out of each other like coral. The aqueducts... more than anything else, the city was dominated by a vast grid of artificial rivers, streams and fountains. Water splashed down huge stair-steps, and sluiced along the tops of walls in perfectly smooth sheets. Fountains and gargoyles spouted columns of water from every rooftop. Bridges spanned between buildings and arched over canals. Instead of train or carriage stops, there were gondola docks—hundreds of them, scattered everywhere—with ramps and stairways and lamp posts.

"But... the ocean!" Rainbow Dash stared at the sprawling metropolis, glowing like gold in the light of the approaching sunset. As her eyes moved over the buildings, she realized where the sunset was shining from. "The sunset's behind us? We're going east? We've been going east this whole time?!"

Derring-Do walked next to her and rubbed her nose. "Looks like."

"That stupid guide did this on purpose! He tricked us!" Rainbow Dash spun around, furious, but the guide was nowhere to be seen. "You...! But...! Aaargh! You get back here, you lying son-of-a-gun!"

"Calm down and quit crowing." Derring-Do took out her notebook and began sketching a crude map. "We don't have long until sunset, so we'll have to search the city quickly. We're looking for the main temple-palace... we should start with the larger buildings."

Rainbow Dash pointed a hoof at her. "You knew he was taking us in the wrong direction! You knew all along, didn't you?"

Derring rolled her eyes. "If I had said something, it wouldn't have helped. You would have spent an entire hour whining and complaining, the guide would have spent another hour leading us around in circles, and we would have ended up right here two hours late."

"They manipulated us into doing their dirty work, and you're just going to go along with it?!"

"The Dzunturan don't have a choice. They need us to be here. It's just the cards we've been dealt."

Rainbow Dash hovered over her. "Well they coulda asked!"

Derring-Do fixed her with a stern glare. "They just did."

Dash stared at the iron in her eyes. She drifted back down to the ground. She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. "You know I don't understand their language. Did you tell the guide to take us to the city instead of the ocean? Or did the guide lead us here on his own?"

"Whatever works for you, I guess." Derring-Do tightened the strap on her pith helmet and strolled over the top of the hill. "Don't fly more than a yard off the ground until it gets dark... with your mane and tail, you'll stick out like a parade float parked on top of a lighthouse."

Rainbow Dash watched her walk down the hill and towards the city. She was moving at a casual jog, and there was nothing cautious or worried about her posture. Her shadow stretched out in front of her, long and thin, reaching towards the ruined city ahead.

Like she'd walked out of a book.