Deep Trouble

You are Daring Do: world-famous equuologist, adventurer, and hero.

You're secretly known to close friends as your own ghostwriter, A. K. Yearling. You've been through many adventures and have written more than twenty bestselling books about them, but you have to market them as fiction because your life story is simply too outlandish for anypony to believe.

You've seen better days than today, you think to yourself, shortly after the henchpony's club catches you square in the barrel from underneath. It hits you with enough force to flip you flat on your back.

While looking for an mythic ruin known as the Catacombs of Causality, you have fallen headlong into a trap planted by one of your least-favorite ponies. You lie prone and winded atop a rocky hill, surrounded by Dr. Caballeron's hired goons. Directly before you gapes a deep hole opening into a cavern. Shortly before being assaulted, you were peeking into the hole. The cavern extends down about fifty hooves, and there are pony bones lying at the bottom. It was clearly used as an execution chamber by a past civilization. You have a sinking sensation that you're about to get a much closer look.

"It's merely business, Daring Do," says Dr. Caballeron as he and his henchponies loom over your prone form on the rocky outcropping. "Specifically, you are always sticking your muzzle into mine. So please, try not to take it personally." With a subtle nod from their employer, two of the stallions grab you and lift you up, pulling your legs forelegs back.

You wheeze for breath as the Doctor waits patiently.

"Huff... T-try... try not to take it personally? This is murder," you say, trying desperately to reach any last shred of decency remaining in the cad's dessicated heart. "You're just too chicken to slit my throat like a real villain would."

You regret giving him that idea almost immediately. Fortunately, your assertion holds.

Dr. Caballeron frowns as a queasy look crosses his face. "Chicken? I think not, Ms. Do. Let's just call it professional courtesy," he says. "As you are aware, I will ask the ponies under my employ to do anything short of murder. That includes tossing you into an oubliette from which you stand no chance of escape."

"The results are the same," you growl. "This way I just die a lot more slowly."

That only makes Dr. Caballeron smile. "Withers, break her wing," he says, and then the coward turns his head to the side so he won't have to watch.

The sunglasses-wearing henchpony nods and pulls your left wing out while you struggle against the other two holding you aloft. They're earth ponies, so you couldn't break free if your life depended on it—and unfortunately for you, it does.

Three painful punches from Withers' forehoof directly strike the upper bone of your wing. On the fourth, a horrid crack sound fills the air and your body is consumed by pain. You bite your tongue until it bleeds, not willing to give the villains the pleasure of hearing you scream.

Your humerus has been fractured. Badly, by the sound of it. Your left wing hangs painfully limp as the two ponies holding you toss you unceremoniously into the gaping hole in the rocks, and you begin to fall.

"Horsefeathers," you curse, painfully folding your broken left wing and extending the right one. You're an expert aerobat, but gliding with only one wing is an extreme challenge. Instead of a glide, you spiral down into the shaded cavern like a leaden whirligig.

The collision with the ground takes the wind out of you a second time.

"Goodbye, Daring Do. Ahuizotl will offer me a fortune for the kind gesture," Dr. Caballeron shouts into the hole, and then the ponies walk off. You're too winded to respond, but it's just as well. You didn't have a snappy comeback ready.

After a minute or so of heaving for breath, you finally manage to stand up. It's dark here, but not pitch black. The Sun is high enough in the sky right now to send a large beam of light down onto the cavern floor, and its reflection provides dim ambient lighting. You wait for your eyes to adjust, gasping in deep inspirations as your body slowly recovers from being stunned.

It's hard to focus on anything other than the pain in your wing. Your pack isn't with you, but you do have some hard painkillers in one of your pockets that will help take the edge off. You swallow two pills, eager to trade some of the pain for nausea.

You feel alone, and vulnerable. That combination is not one you're fond of.

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