The Amulet of Power
Daring Do and the Amulet of Power
Daring Do sighed as she tramped through the thick shrubbery, deep within the heart of the Everfree forest. The adventurer had been hiking through this jungle for days now. So far she has only run into a few creatures that could be considered dangerous, but she has eluded all of them using her wings to fly. After another hour of walking, Daring heard rustling behind her. As she turns around, a manticore jumps out of the bushes and approaches her, its scorpion-like tail reared up, ready to strike.
Daring Do eyed the feral beast. It had the body of a lion, the wings of a dragon, and the tail of a scorpion. It stood twice her height with 8-inch fangs. Its claws had fresh blood on them from its previous kill. The manticore stared at Daring with hunger and ferocity in its eyes, a low growl emanating from its throat as it approached.
Now the manticore is within striking range of the pegasus, it thrusts its tail to strike, Daring ducks to the right barely evading her attacker’s venomous appendage. She charges past it, dodging its claw in the process. While the manticore turns to face her, she grabs the survival knife from her saddlebag and clenches it in her teeth. The manticore jumps at her with both claws outstretched. Daring lunges forward flapping her wings to quicken her gallop; staying low to the ground she turns the knife upward as she passes under the beast, slicing its belly open. The manticore hits the ground, blood pouring from its wound. It lets out a loud cry as it attempts to get up; it fails, and falls to the ground. Its breathing started to become shallower as the seconds passed.
Daring looks at the manticore with pity, she decides to leave it to die in peace. After one more glance at her fallen opponent, she brings out her compass and map to get her bearings, she was close. The jungle was too thick to fly through, and the map says that the entrance to the underground ruins is hidden from view when above the tree line. So she continued on hoof.
After a few more minutes she finally saw it, a pair of statues stood on either side of the entrance of a sealed cave. She immediately recognized the statues as Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, Luna’s statue was missing its cutie mark, a circular indentation where it was supposed to be. They were facing each other, standing in a very prominent pose. The stone door had writing in ancient equestrian, the inscription translated as, “only when the sisters are complete, shall the entrance be opened”.
Daring Do reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a stone that had Luna’s cutie mark engraved on it and placed it into the statue’s indentation. The eyes of both of the statues began to glow as the two statues started to rotate. Daring could hear rumbling from the entrance as the stone door lowered into the ground revealing a passageway, with stairs leading down underground. The statues stopped at the front facing position as the stone door was completely moved away.
A gentle glow of magic is emanating from the ceiling of the passage, dimly illuminating it. The stairwell seemed untouched by anypony for millennia. The walls and ceiling were covered in webs. Vines were poked through the cracks in the walls; they seem to be thriving from the mysterious light.
Daring walked down the stairwell to find a doorway, the wood from the door seems to have long since rotted away. She walked through the entrance and entered what looked like a hallway. There were cracks in the walls and ceiling just like in the stairwell, but the magic that was illuminating the area seemed to be getting slightly brighter. She saw different side rooms throughout the hallway but she didn’t want to risk entering them. Her studies of this place revealed traps were set everywhere. The traps were set to prevent anypony from getting their hoofs on the potential weapon that lay inside of the heart of this place.
Daring took out the map that showed the layout of these ruins. ‘Hmm, It says that the Amulet is it the dungeon of this place, why would it be there?’She thought to herself as she moved to the end of the hallway. As she pushed open the door, which was made of stone, she started to step down into the room, ‘click’. The sound made Daring freeze in her tracks. She looked around to see if anything changed, but nothing happened.
She took a few seconds to examine the room, it was mostly empty; it seemed to be a dining hall. The table was smashed and lying on the ground, but the chairs were intact and scattered all over the place. There were barrels of lunar ale at the other end of the room. The only thing that was noticeable was the skeleton of what looked like a gryphon, and the door at the other end of the room that was open.
She cautiously continued into the room before stopping to think. ‘Huh, I guess that after four thousand years, the traps eroded, well, that makes things a lot easie-‘. Her thought was interrupted by a strange scurrying sound, a very loud, scurrying sound. She looked around but saw nothing, just then; something started pouring out of the in the walls and spreading out across the floor, including her direction, she flared out her wings and started to hover when her left wing started to cramp up. She had used her wings so much the past few days that they were almost too sore to use anymore; her fight with the manticore used the last of their strength. She backed up a few feet when she recognized what these things were, scorpions.
Daring leapt up on one of the chairs as the pool of scorpions engulfed the floor. She looked around; her chair was too far away from the entrance to leap back, and her wing was still cramped up, she turned toward the other door that led out of the room, ‘if I can just use the furniture do get across’ , she leapt to the next chair, then the next, she was too far away to get to the next chair. She looked around, for a second, and then smiled. Daring pulled her whip out of her saddlebag and swung it towards the open barrel, once it wrapped around the barrel she tugged it hard. The barrel toppled over sending ale all over the floor. She put her whip back and pulled out a match with her teeth. She struck it on the chair she was on and spit it at the spilt ale, it missed. ‘Damn it, not close enough’ she desperately pulled out another, and lit it. The ale spill had moved closer by this point. She spit the match and the ale ignited with a fury, engulfing all of the scorpions that were in its wake. The rest of the scorpions scurried in the other direction, clearing a path for the pegasus. She spared no time as she charged through the open doorway and slammed the stone door shut, just before the flame reached another barrel.
*Boom!*
The echo from the resounding explosion followed by the rest of the barrels’ similar fate echoed throughout the structure. The stone door shook violently with each blast, but held firm. Luckily the door swung inward in retrospect to the previous room. Daring, now out of danger for the moment, checked the map. ‘The dungeon is at the bottom of the stairwell just passed the door to the right’.
Daring opens the door slowly, when she doesn’t hear anything, she proceeds to move down the stairs. The stairwell was a surprisingly narrow, spiral-type staircase. Halfway down the spiraling stairwell, the pegasus hears splashing. She looks down and sees that the dungeon is flooded with water. She moves down further and takes a closer look, under the water, in the center of the flooded room, is the Amulet of Power. Daring Do starts to trot down when she sees something in the water move.
Two crocodiles splash out of the water and climb up on the end of the stairwell. They looked mutated from the amulets magic. The one crocodile had several more rows of teeth that it should have, and the one behind it had five-inch spike-like bones protruding out of its back, spanning from behind its neck to the tip of its tail.
The one with the extra teeth approached her first. It opened its mouth unnaturally wide. Daring pulled her blade from its bag and threw it with her mouth, the blade sailed at the croc in a vertical spin from the way she threw it. The croc clamped down on the knife. A sickening ‘squelch’ was heard as the tip of the knife could be seen protruding out from in between the mutant crocodile’s eyes.
The second mutant croc climbed over the corpse of its fallen comrade, and lunged at Daring. She jumped up at the wall attached to the stairs, evading the mouth. She moved passed the croc’s mouth while it was still in mid lunge and used her momentum to buck its side with one of her hind legs, sending it off of the narrow stairs and into the water. Daring Do reached into the dead crocodile’s mouth and pulled out her knife. She wiped the handle off on her shirt and put it in her mouth. The second crocodile emerged from the water, its eyes seethed with hatred. Daring stepped down the staircase, maintaining eye contact with the croc as she moved. There was about 10 feet of water between the waterline and the dungeon floor. The croc swam toward her at a high velocity. Daring Do dodged on the staircase, just above the waterline, to the side to a higher step. The croc slammed teeth first into the wall. Daring used its daze to her advantage and used her body to slam its side, rolling it over to a lower step on the stairs. Daring takes the opportunity as she plants her knife into its chest, piercing its heart. The crocodile growled as blood sputtered from its mouth. It twitched a little then stopped all together. She retrieved her knife from the creature’s lifeless chest and she checked the water to see if there were any other surprises down there. When she was sure it was safe, she cleaned the blood off the knife in the water, and replaced it in her saddlebag.
Daring Do then turned to the glimmer below the water at the center of the dungeon. She jumped into the water and dove to the floor. She looked in awe of the amulet; it was an elliptical stone with a crimson luster and was glowing brightly; it was attached to a solid gold chain with ancient equestrian symbols carved into its sides.
Daring Do slipped the amulet into her saddlebag and swam back to the staircase. When she climbed out of the water, the magic light illuminating the ruins died out, leaving only the glow from her saddlebag. The entire structure started to shake and cracks started forming throughout the walls. Daring pulled the amulet out and held it in her teeth for light. She charged up the crumbling staircase, avoiding the debris falling all around her, she galloped back through the entrance of the stairwell and to the door that led to the scorpion filled mess hall. She pushed the door open to see most of the scorpions dead and charred from the blast of the ale. She charges through the room, avoiding the few scorpions that weren’t killed by the fire as well as the falling rubble of the ruins, and went out of the doorway at the end of the room. She charged through the collapsing hallway and up the stairs, more and more debris falling as she dashed through the stairwell. She made a final leap out of the entrance, just before the entire tunnel completely collapsed.
Daring Do stood up, the amulet still held on her teeth. She turned to look at the collapsed entrance. ‘Whew, that was close’, she turned back to see Princess Luna standing before her. “We see that you have retrieved our amulet”. The pegasus stood shocked at the presence of the Princess of the night. “Princess Luna? W-Why are you here, y-your highness?” The mare asked as she bowed. “This place has been sealed for millennia for a reason. That amulet is too dangerous to remain in this world. Give it to us, so we can rid the world of its dangerous powers forever, and we will look past your transgressions in taking the amulet of power from its resting place”. Daring raised her head, and quietly approached the princess. She dropped the amulet at Luna’s feet before backing away out of respect. The princess stared at the amulet for a couple of seconds before the amulet was enveloped in a green aura. It lifted in the air and connected around Princess Luna’s neck.
Before Daring Do could ask about the aura; a bright green flame enveloped the princess. The flame disappeared after a second and revealed a different creature. It was the same height as daring. It had clue eyes, a black exoskeleton and small fangs protruding from its mouth. The most notable thing was the holes; its legs were covered in them, even its wings had a hole in each of them. Daring recognized what this thing was, a changeling.
The changeling just laughed as it looked at the stunned Daring. “What’s wrong pegasus? I thought you’d be happy to see your princess”. Daring scowled at the creature, her eyes burned with anger. “Give it back bug; unless you want me to add another hole to that chitin of yours, it belongs to the princesses, NOT YOU!" The changeling’s smile grew, “Oh, what will I ever do with the great Daring Do threatening me, I guess I better surrender now!” the changeling burst out laughing as its horn lit up and shot at the ground behind daring. Daring smirked as she looked at the changeling, "you really should give up with aim like that”. The changeling laughed again before taking to the air in a low hover “what, miss? Ha you don’t give me enough credit you foolish mare, now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to Night Star and deliver this amulet to him”.
As the changeling flew off, daring started to chase it when the ground behind her rumbled. When she turned around to see what it was, a giant worm burst out of the ground. Its mouth opened three ways revealing several rows of teeth and tendrils protruding from its throat. Daring’s ears lay flat as she looked at the tatzlwurm towering over her, “buck”.