“So, what the hay are you looking for again?” Daring sighed as she turned to face her brother. The light tan pegasus simply stared at his older sister, a short strand of smoke gray mane falling out of place as he adjusted his glasses. Daring let out a sigh - she knew that he wasn’t actually interested in what it was she was looking for. He was more worried on whether or not it was going to put her in the middle of danger again. Daring loved her little brother dearly, but sometimes his worrying could become a little irksome.

“The Sapphire Stone” Daring replied before turning back to the bookcase and climbing up a stepladder before stopping near a top shelf and pulling out a worn-looking volume. She grimaced as she climbed back down with the book daintily held in her teeth. Books never did taste very good, but she was unfortunately not a unicorn. She stepped off the step stool and back onto the antique rug of her office.

As head of the department of Equinology, Daring had been given a slightly roomier office then some of the other professors at Royal Canterlot University. In her case, she thought it was a little too much. One long stretch of wall was covered with floor to ceiling bookcases. Which, considering that her office had high enough ceilings that she could use it for flight stretches - and, in fact, had one a couple of rainy days - meant that those were some very tall bookcase indeed. The opposite wall was a series of equally massive floor to ceiling windows that looked out onto the university’s main square, where ponies bustled to and from classes and lectures. Some of them chatting with fellow students while others frantically rushed to some building or another, reams of paper billowing out behind them like a contrail. Others simply walked through with their noses buried in books and only occasionally running into another pony or a lamp post.

Daring crossed the office toward her desk, backed against a narrower third wall unadorned by windows or bookcases. Instead, the wall was covered in various framed photos and diplomas while a low set of shelves were covered in knickknacks and various reminders of some of Daring’s adventures. Above all of that hung a massive portrait of a very stern looking pony, her hair pulled back into a severe bun as she glowered at the entire room. She was apparently a former librarian at the University, and had once used the office herself. Opposite the desk, at the other end of the office that was an unnecessarily long walk considering it was an office for one pony - though Daring harbored suspicions it was, in fact, a converted library wing from the buildings early days - was the door to her office. In all, it was a grand old room and far too much for Daring’s taste. She did like the rug though.

She set the book on the aged wooden desk - another piece that had come with the room - and flipped it open to a page somewhere mid-book. The page showed a sketch, obviously of an older piece of stone work. The sketch shows some sort of temple scene, with half a dozen ponies arrayed around an altar in the center. Sitting on top of the altar was a strange statue of a two-headed Anubis, with what looked like a large cut stone fitted in its center. “Supposedly, it was the centerpiece for worship by one of the Hayan city-states during the pre-classical and classical eras.” Daring explained as she trotted around to the other side of her desk. “Nopony has ever been able to figure out why. All the literature to date has been very vague about it. All we know for sure is that they were worshiping the stone and not the statue.”

“Okay,” Darrin said as he studied the illustration. “So, why are you looking for this thing now? If ponies have been searching for it as long as you make it sound they have, what makes you think you can track it down now?”

Daring grinned. “Word just came in from a dig site down south. They found some ruins that actually mention the temple itself.” Daring’s eyes lit up. “We’ve had stories, hearsay up until this point - all the stories about the temple have never been confirmed it as real or not, beyond circumstantial evidence that suggested that they were rooted in some level of truth. But this is the first time the temple has actually been tied to an actual location!”

Darrin raised an eyebrow. “And where would this be?”

“An island off the southern Hayan coast,” Daring replied, “First explored by Sir Far Flung in around 638.” Daring was hopeful about what she might find. If nopony had been to the island in nearly 300 years then chances were good that the temple was still undisturbed.

Darring seemed unimpressed. “I take it you have a map of this island?”

“Yeah,” Daring replied by reaching around to her saddlebags that were hanging from her chair and pulling out a worn and aged looking roll of paper. “Took me three hours in the Campus library to track this down.”

Darrin blinked in surprise as Daring stowed the map away again. “That long? Couldn’t you have got one of the pages to help?”

Daring gave a shrug as she started rummaging through her desk, pulling out various tools - brushes, spy glasses, a set of metal tools she used to chip dirt of artifacts, and the like. “The only one on call was Herpy, and with his track record it would have taken us five hours.”

Darrin rolled his eyes as Daring started transferring the various items she had collected into her saddlebags. “So you plan on just flying down to this island, waltzing into some temple and grabbing this sapphire thing?”

“Not exactly,” Daring said, stepping over to one of the nearby bookcases and pulling out another book and tossing it over to her saddlebags. She grinned as it landed perfectly inside. “I’ll have to stop by the dig site first and take a look at the ruins they found for myself. After that, probably a couple weeks of fly overs as I try to map the island.”

“How long do you plan to be gone, exactly?”

“Two months, most likely” Daring replied as she checked over her saddlebags “Three at the most.”

After a moment, Darrin began to grin. “I am not going to be able to give up on this, am I?”

“Not a chance” Daring replied, grinning. “Come on, Darrin. Why are you so worried?”

“I’m your brother, I’m supposed to worry.” Darrin said with a shrug. “I just want you to be careful, okay?”

“The University requires I follow the Equestrian Treaty for the protection of antiquities.” Daring said as she closed her saddlebags. “I am required, by law, to be careful.”

Darrin raised an eye brow. “You mean like that time with the Squid beak clipper?”

Daring winced at that. “I thought we agreed to never bring that up again. The Squid Beak Clipper Caper was a complete fluke - There was no way I could have predicted any of that at all.”

“And that is exactly my point.” Darrin said as he stepped over to his older sister, resting one hoof on her shoulder. “Every time you go on one of these...adventures, I’m worried you won’t come back.”

“Come on, Darrin” Daring tried to reassure her brother with a smile. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You don’t come back!” Darrin repeated, backing away from his sister as he started to pace slightly. “I know, I know - you do this for a living. But I can’t help but worry.”

This time it was Daring who rested a hoof on Darrin’s shoulder. “And I don’t blame you. But you know me - I can’t not do this. It’s part of me.”

Darrin glanced briefly at his sister’s compass cutie mark. “Quite literally, as the case may be.” He sighed. “Guess the least I can do is lend you a hand getting ready then.”

“Great!” Daring replied. She trotted back over to her desk, waving her hoof at one of the bookcases as she went. “Could you grab my notes on Hayan script? You remember where they are I hope.”

“Got it,” Darrin said before making his way over to one of the massive bookcases before pulling a book out at seemingly random. Daring’s personal library was not organized in any known system of archival organization, but he had been around it and Daring long enough to have a good idea of where anything was in the sea of books.

He deposited the book onto Daring’s waiting desk before pausing at the book from earlier. It was still flipped open to the page with the illustration, but what had caught Darrin’s attention was the other page. It showed the stone - now separate from the statue - in the middle of what looked like a massive hour glass. Two ribbons of some sort twisted into funnel shapes out of each end while motes of something fell into the stone waiting at the middle. “What is this supposed to be?”

Daring paused in her preparations to take a look at the page in question. “Not sure. Part of why I want to find the stone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we know that they worshiped the stone.” Daring explained. “What we don’t know is why. There are theories, of course. Some suggest that the stone is carved from a fallen meteorite. Others theorize that it’s some sort of power supply. One theory suggests that they used it to talk to their god. But with the lack of information about the stone, nopony has ever been able to get even circumstantial evidence for any sort of theory. The theories are little more than ponies trying to answer why an entire city-state would worship a rock.”

“Maybe it was just a really nice rock.” Darrin suggested, which made Daring chuckle.

“Maybe - it’s as valid a theory as any others.” Daring said. “But that just means we need more information. And finding this temple - finding this stone - will give us that information. It will tell us something we don’t know right now. One more piece of knowledge recovered from the ravages of time.”

“And the fact that it’s some sort of giant jewel has absolutely nothing to do with it?” Darrin asked.

“It’s not about fortune or glory, it’s about finding knowledge. Most ponies aren’t that impressed by most things you dig up at an archeology site. It’s just bits of old pottery - A bunch of broken dishes. Ponies wonder how those could be of any value, let alone worth the effort of digging up half a field in the middle of nowhere over the course of a month and a half. But those little pieces of pottery are a connection to a world that’s gone. They’re the last echoes of ponies that have long since come and gone. It shows us where we’ve come from and tells us about who and what we are. It lets us know more about are selves. I don’t know about you, but I think that is pretty valuable, don’t you think so?”

Darrin stared at his sister for a moment before starting to chuckle. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard somepony speak so highly of pottery before.”

“Hey,” Daring said “Pottery happens to be very important. It’s what let ponies stop having to constantly gather…” Darrin cut her off with a raised hoof.

“Preaching to the choir, sister.” He replied. “So, what else do you need to grab?”

“Just a few more things from my classroom,” Daring said, trotting over to the office door. “Pretty sure I left my hat in there anyway.” She pointed at her currently hat free head with one hoof as if to emphasize the point. “You remember the last time I went on a trip without my hat, don’t you?”

Darrin nodded as they pair stepped into the hallway. “The Squid Beak Clipper Caper.” He replied. “We were just talking about this. I don’t think anypony is going to forget about that little incident any time soon.” The hallway outside her office was bustling with dozens of ponies speeding off to and from classes as well as a small handful of non-ponies. Royal Canterlot University had one of the largest exchange student programs in Equestria, and as a result the hallways bustled with llamas, elk, and even the occasional buffalo or wildebeest along with the more common griffons. There were even a few diamond dogs in the mix, easily spotted by the way the tended to tower over the more numerous quadrupeds.

Daring failed to suppress a small shutter. “I really wish ponies would forget about that. It was only the one time. Is it really that notable?” She sidestepped a female student who was in the middle of toppling over as she glanced back at Darrin.

Darrin stared back with a grin as he extended a hoof to stabilize the falling student, saving the mare and her enormous stack of papers from a messy spill. “Considering it was you at the center of the whole thing? Yes, it is.” Daring let out a sigh as the pair continued down the hallway. It wasn’t a long walk to her classroom. One advantage of the office was it made hopping between it and her class easy. Some professors had to make do with offices in other buildings.

The door to the classroom opened onto the front of the room, a desk positioned front and center with a full wall chalk board behind it. In front of it several rows of seating for students were arrayed, each row higher than the rest. Daring immediately went over to her desk and started digging through it. Darrin took a moment to study the diagram on the chalk board - what appeared to be a temple layout from the pre-discordian era - before turning back to Daring. “So, what exactly makes this stone so impressive anyway? It can’t be that it’s just because you don’t know anything about it.”

Daring’s head popped out of where it was buried inside one of the drawers, still hatless, to look at her brother. “The Hayan civilization was divided into several city-states. While they all shared a lot of their beliefs and culture they also had a lot of differences. Some were renowned as craftsman. Others were better known for their food or agriculture. Others had great mastery of magic. But one was different - the Achi.

“Throughout the Hayan records we have found have been numerous references to the city-state of Achi. They were supposedly grand craftsman and fierce warriors that supposedly possessed divine powers. When Far Flung first reached the lands, they told him that the Achi were often given special consideration in meetings between the city-states.”

“And why would they get special treatment?” Darrin asked. “Were they a major power or something?”

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Daring replied. Her voice echoed oddly from somewhere inside the drawer her head was still hidden in - how could she even fit it in there, anyway? “All the records we’ve ever found that mention the Achi report that their territory never extended beyond the one island off the coast. Naturally, Far Flung had gone looking for the island to try and figure out what was there that gave them such clout in their relations with the neighbors.”

“Let me guess,” Darring said. “He found the stone.”

“Actually no,” Daring said. “He never even found the temple. All he found were scattered ruins. Something had destroyed the Achi, or what he thought was the Achi. There was never any other evidence to link the island to the story of the Achi except the story Far Flung had heard - until they uncovered the relief at that dig site. Even Far Flung had admitted that he thought that it was likely that he hadn’t found the Achi. Surprisingly modest for an explorer of that age.”

“Yeah, you would think that he would have been all over claiming that sort of thing.” Darrin said. “I mean, it was an entire civilization.”

“Yeah, but he couldn’t find any proof. What he - aha!” Daring’s head finally emerged, her usual pith helmet now in its proper place on her head. “Anyway, like I was saying, what he found didn’t match up with the stories.”

“I still don’t get that - what sort of stories were these, anyway?” Darrin asked.

Daring adjusted her hat before she continued to speak. “The stories usually described the Achi as being very wealthy. I mean very, very wealthy. There were stories about entire buildings covered in semi-precious stones and sculpted gems. Some of the stories claimed that the wealth was a gift from their god in exchange for fulfilling some sort of duty. Most of the stories don’t even bother trying to explain it. Far Flung thought that the island they were on was the location of a massive gem deposit. He theorized that the Achi used the wealth from such a gem deposit to buy mercenaries or just plain bribe their neighbors into compliance. But he never found the gem deposit, so he dismissed the expedition as a failure.”

“And do you think he was right?” Darring asked as he watched his siter start digging through the other drawers in a much more logical manner.

“Well, yes and no.” Daring replied. “I think he was right that the Achi had some sort of leverage on their neighbors, but I don’t think it was via bribery or tributes. None of the stories mention the Achi using their wealth like that. They do mention that they were very wealthy, and they mention that they had some sort of power - like what their warriors were supposed to possess. But they are never mentioned in connection with each other. The stories talk about how they had all this wealth, and anypony who attacked them was fended off by these warriors with strange powers. It’s less like either of those were the source of their power and more like those were byproducts of whatever power it was. That whatever power, or blessing, or mandate or what have you they possessed, it made sure they were safe and prosperous. The same stories talk about how they worshiped the Sapphire Stone.”

“You think the two are connected, somehow?” Darrin asked as he started to get an idea of the direction his sister’s thoughts were going.

“I think that it’s a good place to start.” Daring closed the drawer. “There has to be some reason why they worshiped a big shiny rock.”

“Beyond it being a big, shiny rock.” Darrin added. “I really think you should consider that theory - There’s plenty of support for it down on jeweler’s street.” Daring let out a small chuckle as Darrin continued. “So you think the stone is magic or something?”

“Probably not,” Daring said as she opened yet another drawer, this one containing a dizzying assortment of parchments. “The most likely reason is that it was one of the better gems they had found. The stories suggest that the Achi were extremely skilled with magic, and any high quality gem would invaluable to them for magic applications. The Stone is likely one of the finest - if not the finest - gem that the Achi had. It probably served a sort of crown jewel or royal scepter - a representation of their ruler.”

“So no magic rock?” Darrin asked.

“No magic rock.” Daring replied as she started to throw scrolls onto the desktop, which elicited a sigh from her brother.

“Darn. Would have been a better story.” Darrin eyed one of the scrolls that unrolled as Daring had added it to the growing pile. It was a map of the Hayan coastline, with several islands visible on it. “So, you have a map and a destination. Any idea for transportation?”

“Coco should be able to set me up a flight.” Daring replied. “Otherwise, I know I can always count on you to pull something together.”

“I aim to please.” Darrin said, a pleased grin crossing his face.

“And you have yet to disappoint.” Daring answered. Her brother didn’t go out with her into the field very often - almost never, in fact - due to his class obligations, but it was always more than willing to help her out in any way he could when Daring needed it. It was something that Daring appreciated dearly.

“So, do you have any idea where Coco even is at this time of year?” Darrin asked.

Daring paused for a moment before answering unsteadily. “Uh…She should be in Hoofington right now, if she’s following last year’s schedule…Well, at the very least she should be near Hoofington.”

Darrin sighed. “So you have no idea where she is, do you?” Not that he blamed her. Coco’s movement patterns were so oddly erratic that a pony could probably use them as an encryption technique. He was fairly certain one pony down in the mathematics department was trying to do just that.

“Not even the slightest,” Daring replied. She looked at Darrin somewhat sheepishly. “Do you think you could…?”

Darrin waved a hoof at her. “I’m on it. Just give me a few days and a chance to call my contacts. At least one should have a bead on where she is at the moment. I can also ask them about where you’re going. Wouldn’t want you to walk into a trap, now would we?”

Daring raised an eyebrow at that. “When have I ever…”

“Squid Beak Clipper Caper.” Darrin replied.

“That was only the one time!” Daring retorted before letting out a sigh. “I wish ponies would just forget about it…”

“Like I said,” Darrin replied with a grin. “Never going to happen, sister . Anything else you need?”

“I should be able to take care of getting to…wherever Coco is using normal means of transportation.” Daring replied. By ‘normal’ she meant something other than the sort of ‘I-owe-you one’ charter arrangements that usually came from the travel arrangements that Darrin set up for her. As unconventional and sometimes questionable they ended up being sometimes, there were many places that the normal Equestrian transportation network just did not serve. The remote jungle of the Hayan region was among them. “So just that information for now Darrin. I should be able to handle the rest.”

“Any plans on what you’re going to do if run into trouble?” Darrin asked. He knew how Daring’s expeditions went usually. First its ‘ooooh’ and ‘aaah’ but they had an alarming tendency to devolve into running and screaming and fighting and quite a bit of escaping by the skin of the teeth. Needless to say, he was expecting her to run into trouble this time too.

“Who says I’m going to run into trouble?” Darin gave him a reassuring grin, but Darrin just gave her a flat stare. Daring sighed. “I’ll be fine. I can handle a little trouble. Give me some credit.”

“You should bring some back-up along.” Darrin said. “Coco perhaps, or one of the ponies working at that dig site you mentioned. Some of them would probably give their right hoof to go find an ancient temple with you.”

Daring shook her head. “I can’t do that. It would be too dangerous for them. On a trip like this one mistake can be a disaster. I work alone.”

Darrin raised an eyebrow. “So it’s safer for you to go alone. Into a mostly uncharted jungle. Without backup.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Daring replied, waving a hoof at him. “I am a professional. This is what I do. Most of the ponies at that dig site have never done field work. Some of them probably have never even been outside Equestria proper before. You can’t just bring somepony like that on a trip like this. It only causes more harm than good.”

“So it’s alright to risk your own neck?” Darrin asked, a hint of fire edging into his voice.

“Better to gamble with your own life then somepony else’s.” Daring said. “That’s what dad always said. I can’t just ask them to risk so much just so I can feel a little safer - especially because I wouldn’t feel safer anyway.”

“You could at least have Coco come along with you.” Darrin suggested. “She’s helped you on trips before and I’m sure she’d be willing to help you out.”

Daring simply shook her head. “I can’t go and call up my friends and ask them to drop everything just because I feel like poking my nose into something in the middle of nowhere. I’m not going to inconvenience my friends like that.”

“But they would say yes!” Darrin replied. “None of them would turn you down. You know that.”

“That’s why I can’t ask.” Daring said as she piled the odds and ends she had gathered into a spare bag. “If I ask them, they will say yes no matter what that means to their own plans. This isn’t something they need to worry about.” Daring loved her friends, but sometimes they were just a little too kind. And like she had told Darrin, this wasn’t that big of a deal anyway, just a little trip down south.

Darrin grumbled something under his breath. He had gotten into this argument - with some minor variations - several times before; enough times to know that he wasn’t going to be able to change her mind about going alone this time either. Daring was the type of pony who didn’t like making other ponies have to deal with her problems even as she tried to help her friends deal with their own issues. Darrin was never quite sure if he found the whole thing oddly noble or annoyingly hypocritical.

Granted, she had improved quite a bit over the years. She was always willing to except his help, for the most part, and knew to ask for help when she was in over her head. She was also a much better judge of when, exactly, she ended up in over her head then she once was. None of that really made Darrin sleep any easier when his sister went on one of her trips. Darrin sighed. “Promise you’ll be careful?” He asked as his sister headed toward the door.

Daring simply turned to her brother and smiled. “Of course I’ll be careful - when am I not?”