@Background Pony #452C  
woh

@Background Pony #452C  
Amazing, I loved it! <3

Daring Do arrived within the temple’s inner sanctum and saw what she had come for. There, dead in the centre, was a great whirring apparatus, hefting a large sea blue crystal above it. In the local tradition it was known as the “Eye of Shalim”, a mythic stone of incredible power. Ancient storytellers had passed down the prophetic tale, now thought to be mere legend, that it’s magic, when harnessed, would bring about the death of the sun and usher in a great darkness to blight the land.
 
Daring, who quite liked the sun the way it is now thank-you-very-much, had found what she was looking for. But a feeling of unease gripped her. Was this it? The journey had seemed much too easy and whatever sinister force was behind this would scarcely leave their apocalyptic artefact unguarded. Something was lurking in the temple’s deep shadows; something Daring was none to keen to meet. A she made her way to the stone, she could not shake the feeling of being hunted, as if the very darkness was closing on her.
 
Reaching the juddering machine at last, Daring stalked around it, scanning for a switch, a button, any sort of interface, looking for something that screamed “release mechanism”. Her thought process was interrupted, however, by the sound of heavy breathing from the shadows. So, she was being watched. Defiance tempering her unease, she stepped back into the darkness. “Hey, I know you’re there!” she bellowed with her characteristic bravado “Whatever you are, show yourself!”.
 
A voice from the blackness greeted her. “You’re not supposed to be here, little morsel.” came the voice, shooting through the explorer like a jolt of electricity. The voice had no real source, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “That crystal isn’t yours!” Daring cried, somewhat quieter than before “I’m taking it back to where it belongs!”
 
“The crystal belongs here…” replied the voice, now from behind her. Then, from the immense darkness, emerged a great sphynx, tall and black. It’s great paws surrounded Daring, it’s hot breath spreading out across her back. How had the creature come so close? No sphynx could move so silently. I was as if the sphynx and the darkness where one and the same. Daring was overcome with a paralysing, almost supernatural fear, her instincts freezing her in place. “…and now” the sphynx continued “You belong to me…”.
 
Daring felt a long, black tongue coil itself around her and a wide, dark mouth descend upon her, still unable to force her body into motion. The sphynx’s wet muscle gripped her tight and lifted her into the waiting maw. Powerless, the pony gazed deep into the sphynx’s black abyss of a throat. When Daring and the tongue where completely within the great black maw, the titanic jaws behind her snapped shut, trapping her in a deep blackness. With one final swallow from the Sphynx, the helpless adventurer disappeared down it’s throat.
 
The manuscript for A.K Yearling’s latest adventure novel, Daring Do and the Longest Night, was received by her publisher with some confusion, containing several elements that where, to put it lightly, highly atypical of her writing style. They noted, for instance, the lack of an escape sequence, which had become something of a series tradition. The decision to end on more downbeat note also raised a few eyebrows and the bizarre change of writing style in the latter half was somewhat jarring. Eventually, it was decided that the text was a masterwork of subversive fiction and the book began to appear in libraries and dealerships across Equestria. Unfortunately, Yearling herself was unavailable for comment.

@KingKrail  
No problem! Hope to see more art from you in the future!
 
Might like to commission you one day too, if you’re up for it!

@Agent Orange  
Thank you ^^

This is great