Magnet the Mighty suspended his staff in the air ahead of him and charged. Rose leapt into a run, unsure what quickening their encounter would accomplish but unwilling to be pancaked between two stone walls. Daring Do flew ahead, trying to distract him, and light from the torches jumped and danced in the wash from her wings. As they closed the distance the statue raised his staff high, aiming to try and knock one of them out.

The hall was three times as wide as the statue. Magnet the Mighty barrelled down on her slightly to her left, allowing room to swing his staff. Rose ran down the right, eyes fixed on the weapon and on his balance, trying to guess what he’d do. Her plan wasn’t exactly surprising, but hopefully his long nap would hinder his judgement.

The track was long, and it felt like eternity until they were close; then suddenly Magnet the Mighty was barreling down on her with the inevitability of a locomotive. Only now did Rose really get just how much larger than a pony the statue was: if she crouched he could probably run right over her.

He raised his staff and swung to fill the void to his left.

Rose dipped to her left and jumped, smacking herself against the wall just as the statue galloped past, swinging at empty space.

She landed clumsily and nearly fell on her face. Daring Do hovered in front of her.

“That was awesome!”

Rose groaned and steadied herself. “He ain’t gonna fall for that again,” she said, turning to watch Magnet the Mighty. He’d skidded to a stop at the other end.

Dash stamped her hoof and exclaimed, “Oh! I got it. I got a plan. When I yell, jump.”

“What!? I just told you he won’t give me any room again. And I can’t jump high enough to clear that stick of his.”

“Like I said, I got a plan. He’s still just a statue. All we need to do is break his horn off or something. But one of us has to get in close.”

“Right. Whatever. Here goes—hey, what’s he doing?”

The statue held his staff and wove a pattern through the air. Behind them Daring and Rose heard a clattering noise. As they turned to look several items burst out of their saddlebags and shot towards them. Rose dipped and twisted as Daring’s canteen and the lid from their empty jar of lantern oil whistled past her. Daring dodged a pair of carabiners but caught the blunt end of a hammer to her forehead and toppled back. The metallic items converged in front of Magnet the Mighty and formed a dense, spiked lump that seemed to hang from his staff.

“Ow!” Daring yelped, rubbing her face.

“Why the hay do you have a hammer?” Rose asked.

“It’s not mine! Just—Ow. Just be ready!”

Magnet swung his mace-and-no-chain and took off at a gallop, keeping close to the wall on Rose’s left. Rose pressed her hat tight to her head and followed suit, while Daring Do fell behind her. The statue was swinging his staff differently, sending most of the motion to the mace in a tall, upwards circle. In seconds they covered half the distance between them.

From up close she watched the weapon in its arc. Magnet the Mighty was swinging it underhoof, meaning it was on the bottom of its swing when it flew at Rose. She had to jump over it, a sickening notion considering her more recent experiences with jumping and landing.

“Get ready!” Daring yelled from farther back. The mace swung up and back at a terrifying speed. Magnet was right on top of her. The ball of metal swung down at her, suddenly large and heavy and spiked.

“Now!” Daring yelled. At the same moment she heard a low roar from behind her. She stumbled in surprise and her jump was sloppy, not nearly high enough, but suddenly she was travelling nearly straight up, clearing the weapon just in time. Daring’s gust sent her up and to her left, and with the grace of a rock Rose tumbled through the air, landing precariously on Magnet the Mighty’s back, facing backwards.

Instinctively she straddled the stallion and held on as he tried to buck her off. Straps swung up and in her face; those same instincts had her bite down to grab them like reins. Compared to jumping and leaping and flying, this was easy. This was something she could do.

“Look out!” Daring called. Magnet the Mighty swung his staff at Rose, sending the metal ball of pain her way. She ducked, leaning low over Magnet the Mighty’s side. The mace smashed into the wall and shattered into pieces.

Rose turned and righted herself on his back and pulled on the reins. Magnet the Mighty jumped and kicked, trying to throw her off. She was an experienced bull rider, but he had no saddle and was hard as stone. A well-timed kick send her flying, reins still in her mouth. They snapped tight, then suddenly she was free, landing in a heap on the floor. Rose shut her eyes, waiting to be crushed below Magnet the Mighty’s heavy hooves.

The chamber went silent.

Rose found that she was still breathing. When she realized Magnet the Mighty had stopped moving she unfolded onto her back and spat the reins from her mouth. She was sore all over, especially between her hind legs. I don’t think I’m gonna walk right for a week, she thought.

Daring’s face appeared over her own.

“That. Was. Awesome!” she cried.

Rose ignored her and looked at the reins, only recognizing them after a moment of bewilderment.

“Hay, mah canteen!”

---

“He froze the moment you pulled the canteen off of his cutie mark,” Daring explained, standing in front of the statue of Magnet the Mighty, thankfully still as any other statue. He’d frozen mid-buck, with his rear legs kicking out and an unimpressed expression carved into his face. “Dunno how he’s balancing like that.”

“Maybe he’s stuck to the floor. That’d be why we couldn’t move him earlier,” Rose said.

Daring waited as Rose rubbed some life back into her hindlegs, looking away both for privacy’s sake and because just watching Rose’s wild ride had made her ache. “So long as we don’t bring anything magnetic into contact with his cutie mark, we should be okay.”

“What about the door?” Rose asked.

“Stuck. Still won’t budge.”

Daring heard her moving, and chanced a look. Rose was wincing and walking a little bow-legged. Daring covered her smirk with a hoof.

“Shut up,” Rose said. “We still gotta get through that door. Got any ideas?”

Daring looked from the statue to the door and back. “As a matter of fact . . . How do you feel about being bait?”

Rose’s eyes narrowed.

---

Yelling and hollering preceded a ferociously loud crunch. Light and heat burst out of the door, spraying dust and chunks of rock into the blackness, followed by the fossilized neutral face of an otherwise angry Unicorn.

Those yells quickly turned to cheering, then sighs of relief. Several moments later two faces appeared in front of the hole they’d detonated in the door. It was cold and dark, except for the light pouring in from behind Daring, and aside from the occasional trickle of dust Dash couldn’t hear anything moving.

“Hold up,” she said. “I’ll squeeze through and help widen the door.” The statue was blocking most of the hole they had made.

“You callin’ me fat? Ah’ll make it through just fine. Ah opened it, anyways.”

“What? It was my plan that got us through.”

“And Ah was the one that risked her neck to break that door down. Outta the way!”

“Move!”

“Move yerself!”

Something gave and the two tumbled into the room. Daring blinked dust from her eyes and brushed off a few stones with her wings. Beside her Rose climbed to her hooves and shook herself clean.

“Alright. What’s next?” Daring asked, holding up her torch and looking around. “Poison darts? Falling boulders?”

“That,” Rose said, pointing across the room. Between them and a doorway on the other side, lit by the soft pulsing orange of Rose’s lantern and the fluttering yellows of Daring’s torch, was a large book stand. On its slanted surface lay something book-shaped.

“Is that . . . the Tome?” Daring asked. “Just like that?”

“Makes sense,” Rose reasoned. “A powerful magic statue guarding the Tome, deep under the jungle?”

For a moment they stood in the debris of their makeshift entrance before Daring shook her head. “No way,” she said finally, and jumped towards the bookstand. Rose followed her over.

Instead of a book there sat a large, stone slate. Unlike the granite of the tunnels and chambers they’d gone through, the slate was jet black with white marbling. It and the bookstand were covered in a thick layer of dust.

She brought her torch near and gently blew dust off the front, revealing a bunch of holes chiseled neatly through. Each was nearly as large as Daring’s eye, and there were dozens of them.

“What is it?”

“No idea. There’s an inscription on the top, though,” she muttered.

“Can you read it?” Rose asked, peering close.

“It’s way too scratched to read it.”

Rose looked at the archway on the other side of the room. “Do you think we should take it?”

“Oh, totally. You wanna have to walk all the way back here when we realize we’re gonna need it?”

“What could we possibly need it for?”

Daring shrugged. “I used to backtrack for this junk all the time. Now I just grab things that look like clues or maps or whatever. Of course, they’re never this big.”

“Well, grab it and let’s keep going.”

“You grab it. You’re the tough, reliable Earth Pony.”

Rose smirked. “Aww, is the big rock too heavy for the poor little Pegasus?”

Daring scoffed. “Of course not! But I can’t fly if I’m carrying it.”

“Good. Maybe if you were stuck down here with me you wouldn’t be so quick to get us into trouble.”

Daring narrowed her eyes, then turned to the tablet. “Fine. No problem. I can totally carry it.” With Rose’s help she finally slid it into her bags. Immediately her saddlebag tried to slide off, lifting the other side up. “Gimme some of your stuff. I’ll hold it.”

Rose cocked an eyebrow. “Ah don’t actually care how strong y’are, you know? No need to show off.”

Daring had to lean far to the side to keep balance. “This thing’s really heavy. If you want me to carry it, you gotta balance it.”

“Okay, okay, Ah got it.”

After a few minutes, her load considerably heavier than before, Daring led Rose through the archway and into the tunnel, walking slightly bow-legged as well.

---

Twilight held open The Legend of the Metalsmith as she worked. She couldn’t focus on it, given the attention required and the difficulty involved in excavating large volumes of bedrock, but she knew this section by heart. It wasn’t the most exciting—that would be Daring’s underground minecraft ride—the most suspenseful—at one point Daring had to double-down on the success of several plans which could come to fruition only far in the future—or the most well written—A. K. Yearling’s beautiful description of the mountain itself took that prize—but it seemed the most relevant; and besides, Twilight had a thing for poetry.

“The mountain towers over us,” she recited; “its spires capped with cold,
Still slumbering and tempting foolish mortals seeking gold.”

And she was making fantastic progress, too. Shutting her eyes tight and leaning into her horn, she swiped upwards through the air, cutting through far less resistance than normal. As her horn sliced a vertical arc through the air the bedrock in front of her separated from the wall and fell with a head-rattlingly loud crunch.

The pull against her horn fell away and she opened her eyes. A rock the size of a small rail carriage sat in front of her where before there had only been an empty wall; by her estimates nearly two hundred tons of limestone had sheared free. Breathing hard, she nodded in satisfaction, brushed some pebbles from the book, and watched as the rock gently sank into the surrounding bedrock, to be reabsorbed and settled somewhere else.

“Beneath its massive vault abyssal horrors, red and old,
Claw endlessly in timeless deadlock, seeking that forbidden sky.”

In the novel, Daring Do had followed tales, rumors, and lore about the mythical, long-gone Metalsmith to an ancient mountain range. There, she’d discovered abandoned factories and derelict foundries dug into the side of what turned out to be a volcano. That poem was engraved deep in the mountain, detailing both the fate of the Metalsmith and hinting at a powerful magic lost to time.

The best type of magic, Twilight thought with a grin: powerful and ready to be discovered. She slashed another boulder free, raising a forehoof to block the spray of dust, and recited more from memory:

“But even greater mountains have been burned by heat and flame,
And now a simple quake reveals those we cannot name.
Deploying massive diggers, crawling forth with careful aim—”

The poem approached its climax. Twilight closed her eyes, spread her hooves for balance, and took a deep breath—

Drip

Twilight paused, feeling a wet impact on her scalp. That shouldn’t’ve happened: the interior of the tunnel was dusty and dry—she’d made it that way, inspired by the book’s forges and furnaces. She certainly hadn’t added any water. Twilight looked up, only to catch another drip right between her eyes.

“Ack!” she cried, wiping at her face. Conjuring a small bubble around herself and the novel, she jumped and flew up to the ceiling to inspect. Water was definitely seeping through from somewhere up above.

“Damnit,” Twilight muttered. She hadn’t even considered the presence of an aquifer. Of course, she had chosen this area for its porous, easy-to-mine rock; it was entirely natural for water to sink into the rock itself. A well dug deep enough into the ground here could probably produce enough water for a small settlement.

She tapped her chin, watching another droplet slide down the rock and drip onto the ground. “Well, cold and damp isn’t great, but at least it’s still immersive.” She’d have to account for moisture, slippery surfaces, and the lowered temperatures, but that wasn’t too hard. And just like her excavated boulders she could sink any excess water into the porous rock below.

“A little water never hurt anypony, right?”

No response from the book. She nodded. “Where was I? Heat and flame, simple quake, careful aim . . . ”

Her horn glowed as she prepared another cut.

“The mountain fails!, its shattered bedrock blasting up into the sky!”

She sliced.

The ceiling above her exploded.

She cannoned back down the tunnel with a spin so random she couldn’t tell up from down or forward from inside-out. Her bubble caught between two stalactites and popped, letting in a terrible roar. Twilight landed with a crack on a ledge above the waterline.

She blinked, lifted herself into a sitting position and winced. Her hindleg hurt. It didn’t feel like anything was broken, so maybe just a strain? Likely bruised. It was too dark to tell. She shook her head and tried to catch her bearings.

It was certainly loud; there was a rumbling that seemed both low- and high-pitched. She turned and tried to make sense of the motion on the wall opposite her, before blinking a bit of sense back into herself.

Water was pouring in from a large hole in the wall, landing in a small pool before pouring back down the tunnels. The noise was so loud, so heavy that she could feel it through her chest. She wondered idly if a whole ocean was emptying itself into the room. Shiny, jagged rocks littered the ground around her, the remains from the ceiling and wall that had collapsed inwards. Even as she watched rocks pulled free from above and shot down the waterfall and into the tunnels, toward Rose and Daring.

Twilight gasped. She couldn’t remember whether there was anywhere for the water to go, or if it was going to flood the whole temple. Rose might be able to swim, but Daring certainly couldn’t—she knew from personal experience just how heavy wet wings could get.

Don’t panic. Work the problem.

A to-do list appeared in her mind’s eye, fighting for attention with an image of Rose and Daring trapped in a shrinking air bubble under a mountain of rock—

A) Prevent the temple from flooding.

Twilight nodded. Adrenaline flooded her body, lowering the noise a little and bringing everything into a sharp focus. She erected a barrier, dug directly into the bedrock, blocking access back into the temple. She watched as the water on the other side quickly drained away, while the water level on her side rose alarmingly.

B) Remove excess water.

That was simple, if not easy: the same spell that helped reabsorb bedrock could be used to soak up water, so long as there was enough surface area.

Twilight started cutting into the ground. The rough, sloshing water diffused and diffracted her spells, leaving random score marks all over the chamber; and soon water was lapping at her hooves. It was frigid, murky water, covered in foam and a fine layer of dust.

She slashed and felt something deep down give way; then the surface burped and sank slightly. Grinning, she kept cutting, digging deeper and deeper and hollowing out a reservoir large enough to absorb the tremendous flow of water.

Soon the waterline dropped, while the flow from the waterfall had slowed to a manageable amount. Ignoring the pain in her leg, she dispelled the barrier that would otherwise trap Rose and Daring behind her, and looked around. Illumination from her horn gave her a quick glance at her reflection, and only when she saw how thoroughly soaked she was did she start shivering.

Teeth chattering, she sat back, rubbed her forelegs over her chest for warmth, and looked around. Water and mist had soaked nearly every single surface, turning the whole room shiny and slimy. Her saddlebags were still attached around her waist. Sitting patiently on a ledge just above the high-tide mark was Twilight’s book. She brought it over and inspected it: a little water damage, but nothing too bad. It had fared better than she had.

C) Investigate the source of water.

Twilight stood and packed the book in her saddlebags. She couldn’t fly soaked like she was, so she cast a quick warming spell on herself and her saddlebags. The moisture in her coat and mane quickly reached and passed her body temperature, evaporating into the already humid air and leaving behind a deep chill that would take a while to fade. Then she hopped into the air and hovered before the waterfall, keeping carefully out of reach of the spray.

She could clearly see empty space behind the wall. This was what she’d cut into, accidentally. Twisting her head back and forth she could illuminate different sections with the light from her horn, but there wasn’t much to see. It looked like there was at least a little solid ground, so rather than try to climb through and above the rushing water, she took a deep breath and squeezed through the space between spaces, teleporting to the other side, and opened her eyes.

She was at the bottom of a giant cistern. Turbulent water lapped at the rock beneath her hooves before sliding down into the waterfall in the previous chamber. The water stretched out until a steep wall of rock shot out from the surface, reaching up into the darkness, out of reach of even her horn’s light. Twilight stumbled back onto the ledge, tilted her head back, and stared.

“This is incredible,” she breathed. Perpetually wet and misted, the rock shimmered and sparkled like stars on a clear winter night.

As she turned and looked she could hear water crashing from somewhere other than the nearby waterfall. Brimming with excitement she leapt into the air and circled the cistern. Up close to the walls she could see water seeping right out of the rock. Pouring down from up above were more waterfalls, none quite as violent or brutal as the first; these were more . . . majestic than that. Their water sparkled in her light, and their mist swirled gracefully around her wings.

She turned back to the shore. The rock wall was inclined just enough for ledges to protrude outwards, into the air. She slashed at some of the rock nearby. A blast of dust and pebbles shot back at her, and when the air cleared she found a huge void remaining. Graceful, twisting whorls revealed themselves, the inner motions of her magic etched onto the wall. The rock itself had disintegrated.

She looked up and imagined adventure. “This is how we get them both climbing again,” she gushed. “This is how we give them momentum. This is where it gets exciting.”

Twilight’s heart was racing. No longer was she confined to tunnels and chambers; now she had room to think big. She almost didn’t want to keep an eye on the heroes. Ideas raced through her mind, and almost idly she started conjuring wooden ladders and painting the landscape with debris.

D) Build!

---

Rose and Daring stood in front of a pair of levers on the wall. They were carefully carved out of some dull red rock. One was shaped to resemble a Pegasus wing, while the other looked like a Unicorn horn. On the floor in front of the levers, at the adventurer’s hooves, was a chiseled image of those same items, only there were dozens and dozens of each in a jumbled mess.

“I’m guessing one of those opens the door . . . ” Daring said, pointing at the exit.

“And the other’ll horribly maim or disfigure us,” Rose agreed, dragging a hoof across her neck.

The rest of the small room was interesting, too; the walls had various designs and scenes chiseled into them, and Daring was pretty sure at least some of those markings were more than just imagery. Beside the levers was a rectangular outline, the same size as the doors they’d been passing through.

“Well?” Rose asked. “How do we choose?”

Daring closed her eyes and tried to imagine the contents of her notebook. She’d faced situations like this before; all she needed to do was approach the problem the same way. Without her notes, though, all she could do was guess.

“I want to try pulling them, but . . . ”

“Oh, Ah know!” Rose reached back into her saddlebag and pulled out a rope.

Daring stared in disbelief. “Hold on! You had a rope all this time, and didn’t want to use it to, I dunno, climb down the sinkhole?”

Rose ignored her, held the rope in her jaw and, in a complicated motion Daring couldn’t follow, had it tied into a nicely shaped lasso, anchored to the tip of her tail. Daring tried not to look too impressed.

“It ain’t a climbing rope. Too short, no stretch.”

“Whatever. Can you hook it around one of the levers? If we can figure out which lever does what, we might be able to decode the puzzle.”

“Easy enough.” They stood well back and Rose set the lasso swinging in a slim arc, bending her forelegs to keep her hat out of the way.

“How are you doing that?” Daring asked, wide-eyed.

“Quiet. Ah’m tryin’ to concentrate.” After a few loops to get the timing down, she kicked up with her hindlegs and flicked her tail to send the loop soaring. It landed neatly over the first lever.

“You could’a just tied the rope around it,” Daring remarked.

“This way’s more fun. Ready?” Rose asked.

“Do it!” Daring insisted.

Rose gently tugged on the rope. The lever’s mechanism must’ve been full of dirt: it scratched and pulled the whole way down. Daring fought the urge to reach out and shove it closed herself. Finally the lever clicked shut. They waited, watching for anything to come shooting out at them, listening for the sound of some mechanism triggering above them.

The door rumbled and slid open.

Daring grinned. “Awe, yeah! That was easy.” She checked the lever and its label. “A wing. Good going, guys!” She flared her wings and posed.

“Get those outta my face!” Rose said, before sneezing loudly.

Daring ignored her. “What’s next?”

Through the doorway was another room, slightly larger this time and ringed with pillars supporting a domed ceiling. At the other side, on the wall, was another pair of levers—a torch-shaped lever, and a wing-shaped lever. On the floor was another jumbled bunch of icons.

“Which one?” Rose asked.

“No way it’s the first lever again, so it’s gotta be the one to the right.” She pointed at the torch. “Unless it’s a trick, and the torch is the trapped lever. So . . . the left?”

“Just pick one,” Rose said.

“Uh, left one.”

Rose lassoed the lever. “Ready?”

Daring nodded.

Rose gently tugged on the rope and after resisting for a moment the first lever slid down. Something in the walls ahead clicked shut with a smooth metal clang and out of the ceiling swung a long, wide, rusty blade, scything through the air a centimeter from the lever, severing the rope. The lever clicked back into position as the blade slid back into the ceiling.

Daring gulped. Rose growled. “Ah don’t have many of those.” She untied the remains of the lasso from her tail then carefully approached the lever. “That was the wing. Huh, Ah always knew those things were dangerous.”

“So, you wanna pull the other one?”

They stared at the pair. Logically, Daring knew the lever shaped like a torch was safe, since the other clearly wasn’t.

“No way both of ’em are trapped.”

“No?” Rose asked. “If we went the wrong way somewhere else, maybe none of these go anywhere. Maybe the dangerous lever changes each time. Hey, maybe this whole thing—”

“Don’t get all crazy, Rose.” Daring took a deep breath and reached for the torch.

Rose shifted beside her before finally stepping back. “Be careful,” she said.

“This’ll be fine.” She eyed the torch. “Uh, it was the wing that was trapped, right?”

“Yeah. Pull the torch.”

Daring gulped, clenched her eyes shut, and—

“Wait. Wait!” Rose hollered.

Daring released the lever and leapt back, falling on her rump. She looked back and forth, looking for the blade sliding down to remove her head, but there was nothing. After a moment she focused on Rose, doubled over with laughter.

“Gotcha.”

Daring made a rude gesture, grabbed the torch-shaped lever, and pulled. The moment the lever clicked down she let go and scrambled back, but after a moment’s hesitation the door slid open.

“Thanks,” Daring sneered. “No sweat.”

“Well, sure, but what about the next one?”

She had a point. They had no idea how many of these they’d have to chance through, and even if Rose was particularly lucky on the worst of days, their odds got worse and worse each time. They needed to solve the puzzle.

Daring led Rose through to the next room, where a third set of levers waited. This time there were four of them: a wing, a torch, a horn, and a hoof. Again, there was a plate of jumbled images below them. They looked haphazardly placed, but somepony had taken the time to chisel in each and every picture.

Daring eyed the cryptic jumble of images. “Something about these pictures . . . Let’s figure this out.”

With the torch and lantern close and their noses nearly touching they scrutinized the pictographs.

“More wings than torches?” Daring wondered.

“Each of these are right-side up—no, wait. . . ” Rose said.

“Wings, horns, and hoofs represent ponies, but torches don’t. . . ”

“S’pose ya need to pull them in some sorta order?”

“Move, you’re blocking them.”

“You don’t need to touch ’em.”

“What if some of them are buttons?”

“It’s a solid brick, ain’t none of ’em buttons.”

Daring sat back and let Rose inspect the images. She knew Rose was good at solving puzzles, but it wasn’t always about numbers and relations; Daring had to feel with her gut. Sometimes, though, her gut didn’t communicate all that well.

Rose stood and wandered back through the earlier doors; after a few moments she said, “Hey, these pictures are nearly the same as those over there.”

“The same, how?” Daring asked, eying this newest set.

“Same size, almost same layout, same spread. Just the pictures themselves are different.”

Same size? “See if there’s something carved into the walls or something that’s the same size. Something’s gotta let us decode those patterns!” She carefully grabbed the safe end of her torch in her mouth, framed the image with her hooves and held them still, then floated around the walls looking for something that matched the size.

This chamber was much larger than the others. The ceiling extended up half again as high, and the room itself was much wider, with more space between the doors. The odds of them being hit by a random, slicing blade were less than they were in the first two tiny chambers, but that only meant it wouldn’t be a sword trying to do them in; it’d be something long-ranged, like poisoned darts, or gas.

She shuddered. Or something moving. No use pulling the levers at random. But she shouldn’t have to. Plenty of times, in other dungeons and trapped temples, these puzzles were everywhere—and Daring could always solve those puzzles. Sometimes it was some seemingly insignificant fact, like the way ancient Marexicans wrote from right to left, leading to the correct translations throughout a labyrinth. Other times it was a pattern, like the floor tiles over a lava pit.

Of course, sometimes the solution had to be yelled into her skull.

“You mean something’ll let us pick one of the pictures outta all of ’em?” Rose asked from two rooms back.

“Yeah!”

“Then get back here. And bring yer saddlebags!”

Daring hauled the bags over and slid them to the floor beside Rose, who pointed at the floor.

“Ah was thinkin’, there was something familiar about these tiny pictures. They ain’t just jumbled up—they’re all pointing the same way, drawn exactly the same, and they’re all the same size. It’s just their spacing that changes.” She reached into Daring’s saddlebags and heaved out the heavy stone tablet. She touched a corner to the corner of the pattern and let it fall with a whumpf into place.

“Awesome,” Daring muttered. Where each of the images had been chiseled into the floor, the tablet conveniently covered them. Where each of the holes had been drilled into the tablet, none of them revealed any images—except for one tiny image that focused right in the center of one of the holes.

“The wing!”

Rose carefully lifted the suddenly very valuable stone, carried it over to the next pedestal, and slid it into place. This time, it was a different hole that revealed the symbol. “Torch!”

“So far, so good.”

Next was the largest room yet, with four levers. The tablet had fit both pedestals perfectly, and with the pattern finally at hoof they were one step closer to the treasure at the end of the temple. And, after hours of stumbling and exploring, they were finally making progress on their terms. Daring and Rose shared a grin as they hurried down the tunnel toward the final chamber.

Daring only registered the pins-and-needles feeling after a slab of purple magic flashed into being in the center of the room, just in time to trip them and send them tumbling. The tablet flew through the air.

“No!” Daring cried, reaching a hoof in a desperate, pointless grab to catch it.

The tablet landed on a soft cushion of magic, where a steel-laden hoof notched it into place.

Daring groaned, but Rose was up and on her hooves quicker.

“Cairo!” she yelled, rushing towards him. Cairo waved a hoof in her direction and she tripped over a brick that hadn’t been there a second ago, sending her sprawling face-first across the floor.

“Stop that!” Daring yelled, taking to the air and lunging at him. Hooves outstretched, she made to slam into his smug face, but he was gone in a crack and a flash of light, smoothly teleporting himself just beside her, just in time to swing his foreleg against the small of her back. Daring landed on her gut with her hooves splayed out and groaned, reaching for her back.

“So good of you to join me, Miss Do. I was wondering if you would catch up or not. You do not disappoint.”

Daring snarled. “You son of a mule’s—”

Cairo clamped her jaw shut shut with a glowing fist and a tingling vice grip. He leaned close and said very slowly, “I hate when you yell, Daring.” When she stopped fighting he released his hold over her face and walked out of sight.

“And Miss Gambit!” he said, his tone light and casual, as if they were discussing the weather. “I’m so, so glad you escaped those horrible beasts. If they’d put a scratch on your coat I’d just die.”

Daring tried to twist her head to see him, but he kept her pointing towards the wall. No matter how hard she strained, she couldn’t look far enough to see him or Rose.

“Oh! You’re injured! Who did this to you?” he asked.

The whole chamber was lit in purple; Daring supposed his magic was covering Rose’s whole head and likely her whole body. Daring couldn’t see what he did, but she could hear when Rose started grunting in discomfort, hissing and trying to keep her breath steady.

“Relax. Relax!” Cairo whispered to Rose. The feeling of pins and needles swept over Daring and she stiffened. “There you go. Much better.”

“Stop hurting her!” Daring cried.

Cairo ignored her and walked around the chamber. She could just see her notebook hovering in front of his face as he paced.

“Such a clever code,” Cairo said. “Meant to help Pegasi and Earth Ponies make their way through these back passages, I imagine, since Unicorns with even a passing knowledge of scrying magic can see the mechanisms inside these walls.” He paused for a moment. “Well, these notes helped.”

“Oh, look at you, so smart,” Daring sneered. “I bet those ponies must seem lame compared to you.”

“On the contrary, Miss Do! The precision engineering behind these traps is simply staggering—and to think they built these machines hundreds and hundreds of years ago. If anything, I’m impressed.” More hoofsteps on the floor, these louder. Was he right over her? “These days, if you need something kept safe you pay a very strong Unicorn to cover a doorway or room in a powerful ward. So wasteful, especially if you have to get rid of the Unicorn afterwards.”

One of the levers clicked shut, and the doorway just in Daring’s view slid open quietly enough that she couldn’t hear it over the crackling magic covering her head. “It was the hoof this time, Miss Do, in case you care.”

“You’re telling us the code?”

“Hardly matters now, does it?” he said, leaving the room. Behind him his magic gripped another of the levers and pulled. “I’d get somewhere safe, if I were you. It’s not a long fall, but it’s very slippery down there.”

The door slammed shut behind him, and the floor started rumbling.

---

Twilight released Cairo and in an instant her sight, hearing, and desire to breathe slammed back into her with the subtlety of a hammer. She took a deep, gasping breath and blinked away stars from her vision, but even as she fought to calm herself she still kept a stranglehold on the cavern she stood inside, as well as the chamber that Daring Do and Rose Gambit shared—she could feel the natural environment fighting to restore itself to a more natural design, which Twilight knew meant filling in large underground pockets.

“That’s the last time I manipulate him directly,” she groaned, casting about for the book before finally spotting it off to the side. Had she moved so much during her manipulation—like sleepwalking?

She turned back to the chamber and watched. Tiles started loosening on the ceiling, and in a stroke of artistic brilliance she sent a whumpf of dust and pebbles towards them through the entrance, blocking off the light and sealing the passage behind them. The floor under the closed exit door began crumbling, and whole tiles fell through into darkness below the floor. She set the floor to collapse in a wave advancing towards the entrance door, fast enough that they could see it, and slow enough that they could easily retreat. And, of course, she wasn’t going to collapse the whole floor—they were blocked in, after all.

It was fun, sort of, so long as she didn’t get carried away: she had to create just the right amount of tension and excitement without actually putting them in danger.

And that meant showing them a way out, even while trying to bury them.

“Et, finalement, la pièce de résistance.” A section of the floor fell away, revealing a naturally formed tunnel under the room that lead to safety. The rubble created a convenient ramp, and a small lit torch several meters inside gave enough light that they’d have to notice it right away, and escape just as the ceiling began to collapse.

But they didn’t. They lay there, talking and gesturing frantically instead of escaping to safety.

“Why aren’t they moving?” she asked, trying to hear what they were saying, but the rumbling all around them was too loud. Don’t they recognize the danger? The safety at the other side? Surely Daring doesn’t think she can protect them both from being bricked in the skull? “Why aren’t you moving?!”

The distraction was disastrous. She felt small sections of the floor collapsing out of her control, and without proper support the pedestal collapsed sideways, nearly pinning Daring Do. “Get up! Move!” she yelled, fashioning as clear of a barrier as she could to slide them out of the way, but nothing happened. Her magic butted up against them but they didn’t move.

“Are you stuck?!” she shrieked, frantically searching the room for some sort of obstacle—nothing blocking their path, nothing obscuring their view, nothing visible holding them down—

Cairo!

She released the restraints holding them in place and both adventurers popped up off the ground like corn in a hot pan. Daring flared her wings, clearly relieved to be free, but Rose wasted no time, lining herself up and leaping at Daring. As they collided mid-air, Rose twisted and grabbed her around the barrel, sending them both towards the collapsing floor. Twilight struggled to regain control of the chamber, knocking some of the bricks aside, but fighting so much chaotic motion was ultimately impossible, even for her. All she could do was hold the ramp as steady as possible.

Rose hit the ground surfing, her hindhooves kicking up a spray of debris. Pillars lining the walls collapsed, and a wave of bricks and stonework followed them. Rose scrambled to keep upright but lost her balance on the rough surface and loosely packed debris, sending her sliding down the ramp on her butt. Daring went flying from her grip and Rose had only a moment to reach for her hat and hold it tight to her head before they passed underneath the wall.

Twilight let go of the ceiling. The chamber collapsed into darkness, leaving the heroes to slide to a stop in the tunnel. A cloud of dust filled the tunnel and passed over Daring and Rose, leaving them coughing and dusty. As the rock stilled, Twilight could finally hear Daring and Rose:

“ . . . never doin’ that again.”

“Are you kidding! That was awesome! Except for the whole getting-buried-alive thing.”

“That whole getting-buried-alive thing was the ONLY thing! Ah swear, this temple is tryin’ to kill us!”

Twilight whimpered. She had nearly killed them both, and it wasn’t due to some error in her calculations, or really bad luck; nor had her Pegasus- and Earth Pony-infused magic failed her. It was a failure in judgement. Never mind that she’d figured it out in the end, and that she’d held off the collapsing room long enough for them to slide to safety, or that in the end they’d had an exciting and dramatic escape from danger, with barely a scratch to show for it, which was exactly what she’d wanted; if she hadn’t been lucky enough to remember that she’d restrained them in the first place, she’d be digging out a pair of corpses.

Daring said, “Of course it’s trying to kill us. Wouldn’t be much of a temple if it didn’t. We just have to be ready for anything, and we’ll be just fine.”

“This ain’t some foal’s picture book, Daring! Sometimes the good guys don’t win!”

“What’s with you, Rose? You’ve gotten out of worse cave-ins than this.”

Their voices faded into the background. Twilight fought to keep calm and think the situation through, but she couldn’t see past the collapsing pillars. She sank to the ground and covered her head.

Just relax. They’re safe now. The thought seemed very minute and washed out by images of one of them pinned beneath a beautifully-carved wall piece, begging the other to leave while she pulls and pushes and yells for help and Twilight was having trouble taking deep breaths.

They’re safe now. No thanks to her brilliant idea to give them an adventure without really thinking it though.

Think it through, then. Use a checklist. Clearly, she needed more checklists. Desperate to buy herself more time she held her breath and dove headfirst into checklist land, where one was conveniently waiting. Near the top of the very long scroll, very tidy script informed Twilight that her friends were safe, now, crowded in among erratic writing that she couldn’t really read.

She tilted her head, confused. That didn’t make sense: usually her checklists had instructions. This was all accusations (Twilight knew intellectually that she wasn’t a failure, not really), reminders (Whether or not she’d locked the Library wasn’t helpful right now), and useless facts (Of course Twilight was having an anxiety attack). She rolled her eyes, only distantly aware of a surge of nausea and burning lungs, and kept scanning. There was something she was supposed to do—

There! Below Twilight does not deserve to be an Alicorn and buried under crushed, desperate, and You’re a terrible friend and they’ll never know how much they mean to you and you always do this to yourself were the words Talk to somepony.

Back in school, Twilight was taught to find somepony to talk to, if she thought she was having an anxiety attack—a guard, a fellow student, one of her teachers, perhaps (it was usually a teacher.) Since moving to Ponyville, that somepony was often one of her friends, who gave and gave without asking anything in return.

But now she was a Princess. Just who was she supposed to talk to? Useless checklist. But that was all it said. And now she was running out of breath and if she passed out then there’d be nothing holding back the rock above them—above all of them—and she couldn’t just magic herself out of this one.

She tried to surface and breathe but her lungs weren’t cooperating. How had she let it get so bad?

“Please stop,” she pleaded. “I’m sorry!”

“Snap out of it, Rose!” Daring yelled, from down below.

“Stop judging me!” Twilight yelled back, before clamping her hooves over her mouth in shock. Had they heard?

The book stared at her, impassively. Twilight glared back, until a small, confused smile cracked across her face, followed by a nervous giggle and a hearty laugh. She rolled onto her side and clutched at her stomach. She was arguing at a book.

With the laugh came deep breaths and a calmer heartbeat. Twilight looked down into the chamber. Rose and Daring had moved on into the tunnels. Twilight stood and eyed her checklist. It was nearly completely filled out:

Situation: A) Rainbow Dash and Applejack are deep into an adventure that has become dangerous as well as exciting. (Related: Applejack and Rainbow Dash are safe, now.)

Problems: A) Twilight is about to have an anxiety attack. B) Twilight cannot guarantee the safety of her friends. C) Ending the scene without a happy ending will leave them with resentment and anger, most of it directed at Twilight. D) Ending the scene due to a lack of control will confirm Twilight’s loss of skill directly resulting from becoming an Alicorn. (Corollary: Twilight does not deserve to be an Alicorn.)

Goals: A) Calm down. B) Keep Rainbow Dash and Applejack safe. C) Make Applejack and Rainbow Dash heroes.

Solutions: A) Talk to somepony. B) . . .

Well, she’d talked to something, and now was calmer, but that left Make them heroes and Keep them safe. She rubbed her temples, trying to ignore the headache that was forming in the wake of her little moment.

She really, really didn’t want to stop. Ignoring that it would mean admitting defeat, putting the two most adventurous and actiony of her friends through their paces had been very, very fun. Not to mention the thrill of adventure, discovery, and heroics.

Safe . . .

Excepting their overly dramatized attempted burial, so far both Daring Do and Rose Gambit hadn’t really been injured, per se—no injuries they wouldn’t’ve gotten with an afternoon of roughhousing anyways. But the more adventurous her plans became, the more likely such incidents would occur.

Heroes . . .

And they had been heroes, so far: they were adventurers on a quest against a villain. All they had to do was rescue some poor, innocent pony, and they’d be textbook heroes. Except, of course, if Twilight took care of them the whole time.

They didn’t work together. Heroes didn’t live safe lives, and Twilight knew that heroes didn’t always make it out unhurt. Daring and Rose couldn’t become complacent. No matter how she looked at it, her choices boiled down to a single, yes-or-no choice:

Risk?

If she were honest with herself, she already knew the answer; she’d made the decision long before trapping them in a collapsing chamber, dropping them down a sinkhole, or chasing them with wild animals. She’d made the decision when she decided to make friends in the first place.

“After all,” she said, turning to the book, “even friendship is a risk.”

Author's Notes:

Author’s notes are available here. Next time: To Roost or Silly Filly. What do these alternate chapter titles mean?

With assistance from Daetrin. Cover art by Foxinshadow. Alternate cover art by Diremuffin.

-wr