Daring Do and the Marked Thief of Marapore Page 2

  Daring Do stepped back in awe for a moment before hungrily snatching the tome back from the shelf. She held it in her hooves reverently. This could be the key to everything. The answer to the great mysteries of Equestria and beyond. She must have looked in a hundred libraries all over the world for it. Why had the stranger been so eager to give it up? Daring knew enough to be wary of such gifts, but she couldn’t help herself from wanting to accept this one blindly.

  “Come to Daring…” she cooed, and her stomach rumbled in response. Food could wait. Daring Do took off her tan pith helmet and threw it across the room. It landed on an old, neglected typewriter on her rolltop desk in the corner. She sank down in her favorite squashy green armchair and slid on her red horn-rimmed reading glasses. Daring gingerly opened the hardback and smoothed over the inside cover with her hoof.

  A bookplate had been pasted onto the left side. It simply said, FROM THE LIBRARY OF GR. A clue to the mysterious stallion’s identity, perhaps? Who was this soul who had given her this priceless book from his own collection? And, more importantly, why? Maybe he was trustworthy. Maybe she should have spoken with him, especially after that desperate cry for help for the town of Marapore. Wherever that was.

  Daring flipped through the pages frantically, looking for more answers. It was difficult to do without even knowing the questions. Still, she couldn’t devour the information on the pages fast enough. An hour passed. Daring had gotten sidetracked reading about something called the Elements of Harmony. Then she noticed that a page in the Fs was dog-eared. Her hoof made its way down the old yellow parchment.

  “Hmm, Fauna… Feldspar… Flankara Relics… Great Luna!” Daring stood up in shock. She had completely forgotten about the Flankara Relics! They were referenced in her U–V volume in the section “Vehoovius, Mount.” It didn’t say what they were, but it did say they were very powerful and to “see Volume E–F, ‘Flankara Relics.’” She had always wondered what they were, and now she was about to discover what great power they actually bore. Daring felt as if the earth were moving beneath her hooves.

  Flankara Relics: Consisting of a staff, a sword, and an arrow, these three magical items are known to provide the most powerful protection in the world (when in close proximity with one another). Alternately, the relics can be arranged in a six-pointed star formation—allowing the possessor to undo any magically inflicted injury.* Believed to be created by a great wizard. Rumored to have been found by the Stalwart Stallion of Neighples on his travels with the Royal Navy. He gifted the relics to the Tricorner Villages of Lusitano, Marapore, and Ponypeii as a means of protection against the highly active volcano Mount Vehoovius (see Volume U–V).

  *Known as the Vehoovius Hex—can only be used once. Legend says it must be witnessed by a captive audience and a “Golden Pedagogue.” Owing to the single-use nature of the spell, this theory remains unproven.

  See also: “Protection Spells,” “Weapons.”

  Daring’s heart began to beat faster. It always did when she was about to connect the dots. She raced to the bookshelf and pulled out the U–V volume, swiftly locating the section on the active volcano Mount Vehoovius.

  “Aha!” Daring shouted as she reviewed the text, which told her that the mountain erupted decennially and this very year was the tenth since the volcano had last showered its surrounding areas with hot lava. “I knew it! Vehoovius is set to erupt any day!”

  She felt satisfied with her detective work and worried at the same time. Whenever somepony showed up at her door with a desperate plea for help, it was a given that the mission was going to include some sort of treasure hunt. It was Daring Do’s specialty, after all. But this was something more.

  If his blatant call for help wasn’t enough, the rumpled visitor had made things more clear with his gift—he wanted her to read about the Flankara Relics and their lifesaving powers. If the ponies of the Tricorner Villages needed Daring Do now, there was only one logical conclusion: the Flankara Relics were in grave danger. And from the sound of it, so were the residents of Lusitano, Marapore, and Ponypeii. Without their magical protection from Mount Vehoovius, what was going to stop the volcano from erupting and destroying everypony in the three towns? Daring shuddered at the thought of it. There was only one choice. Even though she’d just gotten home, it was time for the great Daring Do to go on another quest. There wasn’t even time for dinner. She just hoped she could make it in time.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Get On Inn

  It didn’t take Daring Do long to trot, fly, and gallop her way through the winding forest toward the Appleloosan Trail. It was a perilous trek fraught with steep cliffs and rushing rivers, but surges of adrenaline brought on by the promise of a new adventure had propelled her for the last several hours.

  A massive old tree with a trunk as wide as a canoe came into view in the distance. Daring rarely relied on landmarks after the wandering tree incident, but she didn’t really need to—her sense of direction was impeccable. In fact, her cutie mark was a green-and-gold compass rose. But this specific tree meant she was about halfway to Mount Vehoovius and the Tricorner Villages. Her map confirmed it.

  The air was beginning to chill, and the sky had turned a dusky gray, exposing a canopy of pinprick stars and a low, glowing moon. The cacophony of crickets and furry scavengers rustling through brush grew louder as the night came to life. Daring surveyed her options. She could keep heading south and arrive by sunrise, or she could take shelter for the night. After her long stint on Captain Pony’s ship and her swift exit from the cottage, she was finally beginning to feel the weight of exhaustion. Whenever Daring Do could barely flap her wings, she allowed herself a short rest period of trotting. With each step she took, the weariness pulling on her hooves reminded her of the cinder blocks that were once strapped to them by Ahuizotl in an attempt to stop her from stealing the Rings of Scorchero. She had to face facts—the pony needed rest.

  The surrounding trees provided adequate cover to make camp, but the cold crook of a trunk seemed less inviting than the prospect of a soft bed made up in white cotton linens. Daring Do shivered and carried on through the darkening foliage. Just a bit farther, she thought. I will not surrender to something as silly as sleep.

  Soon enough, a plume of smoke could be seen puffing out from the chimney of a barn about a mile away. Daring picked up her pace to reach the front door. The Get On Inn was a little barn-and-breakfast run by a crusty old Unicorn mare named Mrs. Trotsworth. The stout patroness kept a cozy complex with ten individual barns. They were available to rent for a small nightly fee and included a hearty meal or two. Daring’s mouth began to water at the thought of the scrumptious carrot-and-apple stew she’d devoured the last time she’d stopped in. The best part of the place was that Mrs. Trotsworth never asked any questions about who a pony was or where she was headed. The less said, the better, just the way Daring Do liked it. That way, nopony could get into trouble for knowing too much. An adventurer never knew who was on her tail. Daring knew that going up against Ahuizotl and Dr. Caballeron made her a target. And when a pony was a target, she couldn’t keep anypony close. Working alone was the best way to avoid… situations.

  Daring saw the inn through the trees. The wooden sign out front swung in the gentle breeze, creating a creaky sound like an old playground seesaw. Daring was relieved to see that the hooks below the sign bore the word VACANCY. The rocky path to the entrance crunched beneath her hooves as she walked.

  Once inside, warmth enveloped the Pegasus. She didn’t even realize how chilly she’d gotten. But the stone hearth in the corner greeted her with flames crackling up against a fresh log, and she instantly felt better. Even her wing feathers had been cold.

  “Hello?” Daring called out. Nopony was at the front desk. Daring rang the bell on the counter three times. Ding, ding, ding.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Trotsworth appeared. She looked the same as the last time Daring Do had seen her—a frizzy gray mane, a red plaid country dress, and a cloth napkin with vario
us stains on it hanging from the apron around her waist. “Back again, dearie?” she said, before erupting into a fit of coughs.

  Daring nodded cordially. “Same as before.” She kept her head low so that her pith helmet covered her eyes. “And send up a bowl of that stew. Please.”

  “Of course…” Mrs. Trotsworth replied. Her eyes began to twinkle. “And how will ye be payin’ this time?” The last time Daring Do had come through here, all she’d had on her were some ancient gold coins she’d recovered from the Forgotten Palace of Tlatelolco. Daring had had no choice but to pony up a whole coin as payment. Begrudgingly, of course. She always kept smaller change with her now. As Daring procured the appropriate amount of money from her pocket, she considered that the previous gold coin should have been enough to pay for her to have the best room at the Get On Inn for a year.

  “Just bits today, I’m afraid,” Daring replied coolly as she tossed her payment on the counter. The coins landed with a loud clank, and Mrs. Trotsworth’s expression morphed into a scowl. “Very well, then…” She gathered the coins and dropped them into the near-empty register.

  The old mare busied herself puttering around behind the counter, scribbling something down on a ledger and coughing. Mrs. Trotsworth snatched a rusted key from a hook labeled #8. “Our best room,” she said, like she was doing Daring a huge favor. Daring took note that all the keys were currently present on their hooks except hers and the one for room number three. She seriously doubted that all the guests were out and about this time of night, which could only mean that there were no guests. Usually the place was packed to full capacity.

  “Slow week?” Daring pointed her hoof at the wall.

  Mrs. Trotsworth grunted. “Same as any other lately. Business just ain’t the same since all the robberies down south. Nopony wants to visit the Tricorner Villages anymore.” Mrs. Trotsworth pulled out a stack of fresh towels that were looking a bit worse for wear and slid them toward Daring. “Most of my customers used to be tourists on their way to Marapore, Lusitano, or Ponypeii. I’m the closest lodging to the region. But now—nothing.” She stared out the window wistfully, as if she were gazing back into better days.

  “Robberies?” Daring echoed. She hadn’t heard about any robberies, but the mysterious visitor had mentioned Marapore. Maybe that’s what he was so worried about.

  “Terrible, ain’t it?” Mrs. Trotsworth sighed, back from her trance. “In fact, you’re the only guest I’ve got tonight.”

  “But what about room number three?” Daring gestured to the missing key.

  Mrs. Trotsworth shook her head in dismay. “A few hours back, a stallion came in wanting a room. He insisted on room three. Then, when I went to check on him later, he’d up and left without even so much as a good-bye! He still owed me four bits, too. Can you believe it? And I don’t even want to mention the state of the room.” She slammed a hoof on the counter and gritted her teeth. “The nerve of some ponies…”

  Now she had Daring Do’s attention. Maybe there was a connection between the guest and her own visitor. Daring leaned in closer and brought her voice to a low rasp. “Was he wearing a green cloak, perchance? Messy golden mane?”

  “Well, I think he had on a—” Mrs. Trotsworth stopped herself and looked at Daring Do sideways. “What’s it to ya?” Daring Do needed to tone it down with the nosy questions, otherwise she might reveal something confidential. The last thing she needed right now was to have to explain her mission to somepony. She fumbled for another coin and tossed it to the old mare. That ought to loosen her lips a bit.

  “Yeah, I remember now…” said Mrs. Trotsworth, inspecting the prize with a cheeky smirk. “He did have on a green cloak. What else ya want to know?”

  Daring smiled back. “Let’s talk about it on our way to room number three.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Room Number Three

  It was no wonder the innkeeper was perturbed. The room was an absolute mess. The bedsheets had been torn off the mattress and thrown across the floor. The plush pillows had been ripped apart, and the white feathers had exploded everywhere, causing the entire place to look like it had gotten almost an inch of downy snow. The flickering bedside lamp was overturned, and there was a trail of muddy hoofprints tracked all over the wooden panels of the barn floor. The work of a ruffian. One of Caballeron’s men? It was his henchponies who had trashed her cottage while searching for the last Ring of Scorchero.

  “Looks like somepony wasn’t raised in a barn,” Daring Do said aloud, peeking under the tousled blankets. The innkeeper sniffed and left Daring Do alone to dig around.

  After Daring Do had searched the whole room high and low, she was incredibly disappointed. All she’d found was an old, half-used jar of Goops for Stuff Hide Ointment and a crumpled piece of parchment with some circles scribbled on it. They meant nothing to her, but she stashed them in her bag anyway. It seemed that cloaked pony had simply forgotten them on the table in the madness of it all. It was too bad that he’d left no other clues in his wake.

  The next morning, Daring Do awoke before dawn to find that her body was stiffer than the board on a pirate ship’s plank. It was as if each wing and limb had been bound with rope and tied to a sandbag. Though it was the first time in weeks she’d had a full night of sleep, it wasn’t restful. She tossed and turned throughout the night, her mind hijacked by a disturbing dream that she’d been surrounded by hundreds of little animals crying out for her. She tried to shake the odd feeling it gave her, but she could still imagine their fuzzy faces and watery eyes. “Save us, Daring Do!” they pleaded. The plea mixed with that of the stranger’s and swirled above her head like a gray rain cloud.

  A sliver of morning light began to peek through the burlap curtains. Daring was about to go draw a hot bath to loosen up before she took off again, when a jar on the nightstand caught her attention. It was the hide ointment that had been left behind in room three. No time for a bath, she thought. This will do perfectly to ease my aching muscles until I can relax. She scooped out a generous portion of the oily green goop and slathered it on her green-and-gold compass rose cutie mark. It smelled a bit sour. Daring looked at the jar again. Nothing on the bottle indicated it had gone bad. She shrugged.

  She rubbed the stuff in and made sure that it soaked into her flank and hind legs. A moment later, a tingling sensation took over, and she was able to stretch and walk once more. Daring Do was back in action and ready to save some ponies by finding those Flankara Relics. That is, if a certain raider hadn’t gotten there first.

  CHAPTER 6

  Enter the Jungle

  Warm winds rushed through Daring Do’s gray-and-black mane as she zipped across the late-morning sky, legs outstretched, reaching toward her destiny. It had been a rough flight from the inn, but she’d flown straight there with no stops. She couldn’t waste any more precious time with silly matters like rest. There would be no helping ponies if they were already eternally frozen in volcanic ash and cinders.

  Daring Do applauded herself for her impeccable sense of direction and fast flying as Mount Vehoovius came into view. As she soared through the atmosphere toward the behemoth, Daring Do felt like the wind had been knocked from her lungs. Vehoovius was the largest volcano she’d ever seen! It reached far up into the clouds, kissing the blue sky. The blackened, sloping sides had formed deep grooves from the repeated expulsion of hot, molten lava throughout the millions of years of its existence. Patches of green foliage creeping up the wide base of the formation were a dead giveaway that it had been several years since its last eruption. That meant she’d made it here in time! She still had a fighting chance at finding the relics and returning them to their rightful places before disaster struck.

  The volcano was beautiful, yet daunting. Daring Do wondered how the ponies of this region had managed to build their towns here with such an imminent threat dictating their entire lives. There were no other towns or cities for hundreds of miles in each direction. Back at the inn, Mrs. Trotsworth had explained th
at the citizens of the Tricorner Villages were so remote from everypony else that they’d created their own fully functioning society. The three towns were each in charge of a major resource, and they shared their bounty with one another. The residents of Ponypeii were the farmers, the ponies of Lusitano lived near the river and thus provided fresh water, and those who lived in Marapore were the masters of the loom, providing the distinctive cloaks of the region.

  The ponies of Marapore’s talents were rumored to be entirely in their creation of the special garments, which tourists to the region coveted. Some ponies said the cloaks were magical and gave the wearer unique powers. Daring wasn’t sure what she believed. But a well-traveled voyager such as herself had seen many far-fetched things—temples crumbling to the ground in three seconds flat, natives shooting a hundred poison-tipped arrows at her as she weaved through the forest, and massive boulders chasing her down narrow underground passageways. Whatever the truth was about the mysterious villagers, all signs pointed to Marapore as the place to start looking for it.

  Daring tilted her body, soaring through the low-hanging clouds and perusing the gradient of rich greens below for the ideal place to touch down. She wanted to land just outside Marapore so that she could get hold of her bearings before entering the town. If anypony noticed her prematurely, she might have to explain herself. Sometimes the quickest way to ruin a mission was to make it known to the public. Questions demanded answers.

  The scene seemed to be accurate to the map she’d obtained in her Atlas of Equestria. The base of Mount Vehoovius was surrounded by thick tropical foliage, a blanket of deep greens, fiery reds, and rich purples. A worn path connecting the three towns forged a visible triangle from the sky, with the staggering mountain rising up from the center.