Daring took a look at her map, if she had managed to chart the map right then this was the area of a lost temple the natives talked about and did their darndest to avoid entering for some reason, it was a skill she had mixed feelings about picking up. Of course, she had to draw the map up from scratch, she was more worried about proper conversion to the real world. What confused her was the fact they didn’t avoid the temple altogether, just had not ever entered it in generations for some reason they wouldn’t share. What was more vexing, at least to her, was the fact said natives did this same ritual twice a year, both times seemed to coincide with what she believed might be estrus cycles for some reason.

As she looked at the chart in her hands, which she had to create from oral traditions of the culture in this area, she realized how empty her adventures really were now. Without all the villains she had faced before, the traps ceasing to be challenging, and adventures themselves ceasing to have the appeal they did just a few years prior, it was abundantly clear her sense of adventure was almost completely tapped out.

She was starting to feel the effects of her age, she was already pushing sixty and feeling closer to eighty. As fun as her adventures had been in the past, her reflexes were starting to feel sluggish. Despite all the things that led to her own body working against her, Daring Do had reached the point that she was starting to admit her limits had more say now than they used to.

This temple was going to be her last adventure, which meant the book she wrote around it would be the end of the Daring Do books, she would pass the torch on to the next generation. Daring was actually excited for the potential start of her life as a civilian with no having to go out and face ancient threats for the off chance of finding a potentially dangerous artifact that needs to be locked away. It was a look in on just one more artifact, how much trouble could it be?

Author's Notes:

Yes, this is the start of a new story from me. I decided to do a SpikexDaring Do clop story this time around, mostly because I haven't really seen those sorts of stories and because it's been a bit of an itch for for me the past few months.