//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Sunset Expedition // by MysteryMan97 //------------------------------// Expedition Log: Cycle 235 The cycles since the attack have been… difficult, to say the least. I got my magic circle back up and running, but some of my gems were cracked by the monster. I brought 17 gems with me, and as of right now I have only eleven functional, and eight are needed to keep the magic circle charging the other three. I’ll try experimenting with alternative designs, but as it is my magical situation is reaching critically low levels. On the bright side, I managed to get rid of the body, I dumped it on a couple of rotting logs from my failed attempts to build a canoe and shoved the mess into the great river. However, a lot of it was dangling in the water, and I guess that attracted river predators, because it only made it about a minute or so before something pulled it into the water. Unfortunately, even though my wound healed without killing me from an infection (let’s just say thank Celestia that I got my magic circle running again, because it got bad there for a while) I now have a large scar on my side, which has changed the color of my fur in the area. The bad part isn’t the effect on my looks however, I can tell that it just… it didn’t heal correctly, that’s the only way I can put it. I still feel plenty strong, it’s just constantly using it, such as by walking to get food, or hauling logs to camp for firewood and building materials, makes it hurt. It hasn’t given out on me so far, so I guess I just have to live with the pain for a while longer and pray that when I get back to Equestria somepony can heal me properly. Anyways, I’ve been finishing up my repairs, and I have a diagnosis: The tent is ruined, and although rain isn’t common, it happens enough that I need a replacement soon. Meanwhile, three out of my eight books, specifically Surviving in the wild by Bear Grills, Producing Potions: An Introduction by Smelly Brew, and Explorers of Equestria by Dusty Quill, have been damaged, their spines broken and pages torn out as that creature bit into them, I guess they smelled like me because I read them the most? I don’t know, but the fact is they’re damaged, and a lot of the information in them is just… gone. That brings me to the big question: Why did that thing attack me? After thinking about it for a long time, I think I figured it out. While I was moving it down to the river, I noticed that I could see its bones on its stomach, even through the scales, and while it might be an alien, back on Equestria that is a sign of starvation. That made me feel better and worse: better because it really was it or me, there wasn’t anything else I could do once it attacked me because it was so desperate for food that nothing else I would have done would stop it, and worse because… well because this didn’t need to happen. If it had found something like those weird bug-lizards that hang out in the river shore, or the giant crabs in the grasslands, then it could have eaten well and never bothered me, but because I ran into it first it focused on me, and I had to kill it. Moving on, I’m changing the layout of my camp as I rebuild. This time, I’m going to dig out a trench and use that dirt to build a barrier, and then I’ll put the spikes in that barrier. It’ll take longer, a lot longer, but I have time, and maybe with some passive wards that strengthen the spikes when something hit them I’ll actually be able to sleep at night without worrying that every sound is a new monster out to kill me. Anyways, I have a lot of work to do, and I still get a headache when using magic to write, so this is it for now. ----- As time passed, Camp Sunset was slowly rebuilt, bigger and better than before. Sunset used what power she had efficiently, and with no other predators arriving to ruin her work she made slow but steady progress. The ditch circling the camp not only provided material for a small barrier, but also drained away water during the rainstorms that struck seemingly without warning, and although the loss of her tent was a major blow, Sunset was able to build a semi-waterproof structure out of tarp and sticks, although a more permanent solution was needed. With the perimeter rebuilt stronger than before, she made improvements within the camp, reducing the charging rate of the magic circle by reducing it to six crystals, which gave her five crystals loaded with energy for any expedition or emergency. Meanwhile, using half-remembered history lessons and vague guides in her books, she figured out how to identify and cut down trees from the edge of the forest, using an improvised sled made from the remnants of her rope to lug logs back to camp for the construction of a small cabin. At first, she’d had a big dream of a building that included storage for food and neat samples, a laboratory, a bedroom, and a primitive bathroom using water from the drainage ditch to wash away “waste”, but after the first few cycles, and several breakdowns in the middle of the field as her scar flared up in pain at the exertion, she downgraded her ideas. Now the plan was for a one-room cabin to hold everything, with lean-to’s around the outside to keep whatever couldn’t fit inside somewhat sheltered. However, while the cabin itself was the easy part, between magic and trial-and-error it was relatively easy to get the logs stacked correctly, figuring out how to build a chimney from scratch was… well a bit difficult. Her initial plan, to use stone, failed when she tried to pull up stones and realized how much magic it would take. Then her second plan, build it out of magically treated wood, failed when she tested the enchantment and it could not draw magic from the background at the current levels, which would mandate that she slot in a crystal or something to draw in power for it, cutting into her already critically low supply. Finally, she stumbled on some clay down by the river and decided why not just use bricks? Give it a nice homely feeling. [Five cycles later] “Alright you stupid lump of clay, I am your master! I command you to hold your shape and STOP STICKING TO THE FLOOR OF THE KILN!” Sunset screamed as she prepared to pull another test batch of bricks out of the kiln. “I am sick and tired of cooking outside! I will have a fireplace if it takes the entire rest of the time I have on this world, do you hear me!?!? I will not be denied!” Grabbing one brick with telekinesis, it slid out of the kiln perfectly, no material lost to the floor or walls… but it also had another brick baked onto it. Sunsets eyes twitched as she looked over the entire batch, and something snapped in her mind. “YOU PATHETIC LUMP OF CLAY! I AM SUNSET SHIMMER, I SURVIVED MONSTERS AND HUNDREDS OF DAYS ALONE ON AN ALIEN WORLD, AND I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED BY A MOUND OF DIRT!” The failed bricks said nothing, because they were bricks. Sunset threw them over the wall and they crashed down in a field as she fell to the ground and began to sob. “I just… was it really too much to ask for a fireplace in my dinky little one-room cabin, that I don’t even have a bucking door for because I can’t figure out how to make a hinge?” She asked the sky, tears flowing down her cheeks. “Celestia, oh I’m so sorry, if I’d just… if I hadn’t been such a greedy, self-centered brat I would be safe and sound in Canterlot, preparing for an actual expedition through the mirror, with plenty of help from ponies who know what they’re doing, and could talk to me, and could keep me from feeling like it’s all a giant waste of time!” She laid there in the dirt for hours, gently sobbing, before her hunger forced her to get up and eat something. Expedition Log: Cycle 288 It’s been a while since my last update, and honestly I’m not sure how accurate my cycle count is anymore, but I felt like this should be recorded. I finally had a full-on breakdown yesterday, screaming at objects, crying in the dirt, all that wonderful stuff. To be honest, I’ve seen this coming for a while, but I’ve been having a hard time recently with the rebuilding and mental health hasn’t been my primary focus for a while. Well, that’s changing today. I’m going to start taking two cycles out of every ten “off”. Sure, I’ll still have chores and the like, but I won’t do any major construction work or studying. Honestly, I probably should have done this a long time ago, back in Canterlot I could get away with working all the time because somepony cooked for me, and kept the sewers working, and the guards kept any monsters far away from the castle, and if I ever needed time off I could just… stop, go on a trip, do something fun for a couple days. I can’t do that here, and that means I need to keep myself from burning out, because if I go past my limits, one mistake could snowball into a disaster. Update on the portal: I’m pretty sure that I could force it open… for a few moments before whatever safeguards Starswirl set on the other side to prevent the creatures he sealed on the other side from doing literally that kick in and it all goes to hell. The crafty stallion built the portal in such a way that the vast majority of the spell matrices are in Equestria, and the only time somepony with access to one side can reach through and edit the other is when the portal is open, and if it was open I wouldn’t need to force it open. So in the end, the best case scenario is that I can access the spell matrices on the Equestrian side long enough to shut down the safeguards without closing the portal permanently, while the worst case scenario is I get rushed by the countermeasures and mess up, trapping myself here forever. With that in mind, forcing the portal is officially something I will only do if the alternative is worse. I don’t know how that could happen, but having options never hurts. ----- There are aspects of the universe that Sunset Shimmer had arrived on that, as a lone unicorn stranded on the surface of a wild planet by herself, she was unaware of. She knew nothing of the human race in this universe, a human race that diverged from what we call “history” in 1870, even though the true differences are far older than that. This humanity had, over the last 20 years, slipped the surly bonds of Earth and laid claim to vast territories on Mars and Venus, which was only possible because in this universe all the planets of the inner solar system, Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury, hold atmospheres that humans can breathe, are loaded with life and civilizations for human empires and merchants to profit off of, and sit in an invisible sea called the Ether, through which ships can travel. This was discovered when Thomas Edison crossed the gulf between worlds in a prototype “ether flyer” in 1870, discovering that not only was Mars inhabited, but it was full of a vast multitude of riches that eager human empires, from the powerful British to the up-and-coming Germans to the rapidly modernizing Japanese, were eager to take a bite out of. However, Sunset was not on Mars, she was on Mercury, a planet that few humans cared about. The perpetual rain of Venus hosted vast arrays of plants for eager chemical companies, Mars had its Liftwood, which allowed the construction of airborne vessels of a vast size, and Mercury had… a small, 300 mile wide temperate zone of eternal twilight, surrounded by lands of eternal day that at some points got hot enough that vast lakes of liquid metal formed on the surface, and a land of eternal night, so cold that in some places oxygen cannot exist in a gaseous form. For most of humanity, Mercury was a distraction, a minor piece that could, theoretically, be valuable sometime in the future once technology had advanced enough to take advantage of its lakes of liquid metal or explore the mysterious structures in the eternal night, but for now it was the home of a few dozen prospectors, a British outpost, and one Unicorn, scattered across the temperate zone with hundreds or thousands of miles between each other However, after all of that time alone, Sunset Shimmer was finally going to meet one of the inhabitants of this universe, another soul who had run away to Mercury in the hopes of finding fame and glory, and the meeting of these two souls on this wild world would shake both civilizations for decades to come… ----- Fascinating, despite being linked by the closed portal at all times, the spell matrices on each end barely interact at all! It’s as if the entire spell is three spells, the Equestrian end, this end, and the portal itself, and they simply appear to act as one because of these complex mini-matrices that connect them… What the tartarus was that!?!? Sunset whipped her head up as she heard a sound that was almost like a falling sky-chariot. In the sky above her camp something was falling through the sky. As it slid through the sky she watched it grow larger and larger, resolving from an indistinct blob into the shape of… a ship!?!? Not even an airship, just a regular ship?! Falling from the sky? What the hay is going on here? The strange impossible ship flew through the sky, passing only a few hundred yards over her head before crashing and skidding across the ground north of Starswirl’s River, coming to a rest about two or three miles to the north of Camp Sunset. Sunset took only a moment to stare at the impossible ship, her mind wondering what possessed somepony to build a metal boat that flies even as she stuffed her journal and every charged battery crystal she had and rushed out towards the crash sight. Teleporting over the relatively small tributary Sunset ran across the grassland, burning magic to avoid the native life that might attack her as she rushed to her goal. Somepony might be still alive in that wreck! Finally, after all this time I finally won’t be alone! Joy filled her from hoof to head as she ran forward, and by the time she reached the crash site she was near delirious with joy, and the shape of the ship filled her with even more happiness. It’s still in one piece! It doesn’t even have holes in the hull! Oh Celestia the ponies on board probably survived! “Hello! Anypony here!” She called out towards the ship. For a few moments nothing happened, but then she heard something. A series of thumps and the sound of machinery from within the ship! Circling the craft, she found the noises were coming from a section of hull that, as she was watching, was pulled open by whoever was on the inside. Nearly jumping for joy, Sunset watched as a strange creature stepped out of the hatch. The creature was bipedal, sort of like a minotaur but without the size difference between its upper and lower bodies, and it was absolutely covered in clothes except for a few spots where its skin was revealed. Huh, no fur. Does have a mane though, so that’s weird. I thought manes went with fur… it’s staring at me. The creature’s eyes were wide and its mouth wide open as it stood in silence in front of her, and Sunset felt mildly annoyed. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you it’s rude to swear?” she snapped. “Seriously, you’re some naked monkey thing and I’m not staring at you.” The creature shook its head and blinked rapidly at her words before responding… with a string of gibberish. Sunset felt like facehoofing as realization hit her. Because of course it couldn’t speak the same language as me, that would be to easy! And I don’t know any translation spells because everypony speaks the same language in Equestria! Even Griffons and Yaks and Dragons! My spellbook better have something for this, or everything here is going to be very hard to explain. Putting a smile on her face she waved a hoof. “Hello. My name is Sunset Shimmer.” She gestured to herself as she spoke slowly and clearly, trying to project a trustworthy image through her body language. It seemed to work, the strange creature said something else in its language, and then after a few moments where the two just stood staring at each other looked back into its ship and gestured inside. Sunset weighed her options. On one hoof, it would be rude to refuse an invitation, on the other it could be a trap… I have enough energy to teleport out. That decided she walked forward, and her new host lead her into the metal vessel. It wasn’t that long of a walk, the craft was more like a boat than a ship, and soon her host was holding up… Wait, is that a camera? They have cameras! Well I mean I guess it’s not that surprising if they can make metal sky-ships but… Sunsets musings were cut off by the cameras flash as the creature took several pictures of her. After a few photos the stranger started babbling on in its strange language, its excitability reminding Sunset of some of the more excitable students at Celestia's school, like little Twilight, always jumping around when she got a new book or manuscript to read… Huh, I spent all that time resentful of her for cutting into my time with Celestia, and now that I’m away from her I miss her. Sunset chuckled to herself. “I know you can’t understand me, but I haven’t had anypony… errr, anyone to talk to in a while so I’m going to keep talking.” she told the creature before heading towards the door. “Anyways, do you want to see my camp?” Her host just stared at her blankly, and Sunset decided to just lead it to her camp. Actions speak louder than words, and in this case it doesn’t matter how loud the words are because neither of us understand the others words. As she walked out the door, her strange visitor from the sky rushed to pack its camera and several other items that Sunset was surprised to recognize. I guess that I shouldn’t be that surprised, there’s only so many ways to make a journal. At least it… she? It seems female, so I’m going to assume it’s a she. Sunset pondered the gender of her new companion as they walked through the fields, following the path she had trampled down on the way in, and during the trip Sunset watched as the strange alien mare looked around, her eyes wandering across the landscape as she tripped over herself in the low gravity. Huh, I guess she’s not from here, otherwise she’d be used to how light everything is. Does that mean her ship can travel between worlds? Maybe that’s why it fell, it must be some sort of magic, and it ran out of energy! Could I use it to get back to Equestria early? Oh imagine Celestia’s face when I fly in on a metal ship with an alien! As the pair approached Starswirl’s River, Sunset’s new companion looked over the river and pointing at Camp Sunset, saying something in her strange language before looking at the river itself and frowning. Oh, she’s worried about crossing the river. That makes sense, not even every Unicorn can teleport, especially in a low-magic environment like this! Luckily for her I already figured it out. “Hey” She said, mainly to get the mare’s attention. When she turned to face Sunset, Sunset walked up to her, wrapped a leg around her, and tapped deep into one of her batteries. Her guest squirmed and tried to kick away, but sunset just held on as she focused on the spell. Her horn began to glow, and in an instant the pair were across the river, just outside Camp Sunset’s entrance. At that point Sunset let go of her guest and walked into the camp. “Well, come on in!” She said, waving her hoof for good measure. Once inside, Sunset felt embarrassed as her guest excitedly looked around at her camp. “It’s really nothing special, I would have been able to build something better in a week if I had all my magic.” She said, her words falling on uncomprehending ears. I really need to find a translation spell. ----- Gertrude Bell was ecstatic. Right in front of her, it’s nose stuck in an ornate book that would not have been out of place in her fathers library, was a unicorn! Not merely a horned horse, but an actual fae creature capable of magic, like transporting the pair of them across the river in an instant! She obviously had other magics as well, that book was far to well-preserved for this environment, and the way she had retrieved it, by enveloping it in a cloud of magic as her horn lit up with the same and pulling it towards her, only proved the point. She is truly a marvelous creature, and intelligent as well! This is the discovery of a lifetime, proof that father was wrong about me, that I do have what it takes to be an explorer! I must see if I can induce her to board my ship, if I can get it airborne and return with her to Earth… Her musings were cut short as the strange orange unicorn’s eyes widened in excitement and it began to murmur to itself. A few moments later, she jumped to her feet, rushing up to Gertrude and babbling something in its strange, melodic tongue. At Gertrude's incomprehension, the unicorn huffed in frustration before beginning to pace. Once again, after a few moments Gertrude could see an idea strike the creature, and it turned to her and… stood up on it’s back legs, with one of its front ones braced against the wall of its abode. As Gertrude watched the sight of an orange unicorn standing on two hooves, the unicorn pointed a front hoof at her, and then slowly lowered herself to the ground. She repeated this action a couple more times before Gertrude understood and sat on a smooth rock nearby. Taking only a moment to grab a pair of large crystals from a bag, the unicorn was soon upon her, horn pressed against head as it began to mutter. Gertrude nearly panicked, it felt like something was prying at her mind, but the unicorns weight kept her seated and the sensation passed in a moment. As her host stepped back and opened her mouth, she was not expecting to understand the next words out of its mouth. “Sorry about that, I’ve never cast that spell before, and the book said direct contact was the best way to guarantee that it worked. It did work, right? Can you understand me?” A feminine voice came from the unicorn, stunning Gertrude. However, she was a proper English woman, and she did not allow her hosts question go unanswered for long. “I can understand you fair lady.” She said, her mind reeling as she tried to process the fact that not only could this unicorn speak English, it spoke it with an American accent. In her shock, Gertrude’s brain noticed the two crystals the unicorn had picked up were now glowing brightly as she held them in her magic. “Oh, don’t be so formal! I haven’t had anypony to talk to in over a year, although you aren’t a pony… you look sort of like a minotaur, but you don’t have the fur or horns of one… Anyways, my name is Sunset Shimmer, and you have no idea how glad I am to meet you! Like I said, I’ve been alone for more than a year, and I was starting to go crazy!” Minotaurs? She knows what a minotaur is but not a human? “My name is Gertrude Bell ma’am, and I am a human. Specifically, I am an Englishwoman.” Sunset cocked her head at that last remark before realization dawned. “Ohhhhh, so that’s like what type of human you are. We have something like that to! I’m a pony, but I’m specifically a Unicorn. Anyways, it’s a pleasure to meet you, and I’m sorry if I was a bit rude getting the translation spell setup, but I was just so excited to finally have someone to talk to that I couldn’t help it!” “That… that is understandable Lady Sunset.” Gertrude replied. Over a year with no one to talk to? I barely made it through the month and a half on the flight from Earth, I cannot imagine an entire year. Sunset got a confused look at her words. “Lady Sunset…? I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to disappoint you, I’m not a lady, just a spoiled brat who decided that going to an untouched, alien world was a good idea.” She said flippantly as Gertrude felt a wave of unease settle in her stomach. Her father glared at her, his expression furious. “Gertrude, this marriage will secure our families place in society, and I will not let you ruin that because of some ridiculous scheme to become an explorer.” “But Father…” “That is enough, Gertrude. You are acting like a spoilt child! Return to your room, I will have the servants bring you dinner later.” He dismissed her with a wave, crushing her hopes and dreams… “Hey, Gertrude, you doing alright?” Sunset called, looking at her with some concern. “I… Yes, my apologies. I was… caught up in a bad memory.” She responded. “Forgive my rudeness, but you called this an alien world… are you from a different planet? We have legends of creatures like you at home, but they widely regarded as fables and myths, no one has ever seen a unicorn on Earth.” Sunset perked up. “Oh? that’s interesting.” She said as she walked over to the stone obelisk in the center of the camp. “This is actually a portal, for three days every twenty moons it opens, linking this world with my home. If you stick around long enough, I could even take you through next time it opens!” A portal to another world? Truly she is a creature of great magic, but she seems nothing like the unicorns of legend, although… “Pardon me for asking, but am I the first human you have seen on this world?” Sunset nodded. “Yeah, otherwise I would have tracked them down and talked to them.” “Even if they were male?” Sunset looked at her like she’d just grown a second head. “Of course, why would that matter?” “Well, there are legends that unicorns are only accepting of young maidens.” “... What is a maiden? Is that another type of human?” Gertrude’s face heated as she explained exactly what a maiden was, and when she did Sunset gave her a look of sheer bewilderment. Of course, Gertrude had no way of knowing what Sunset said, because at that moment the glowing crystals went out, and the next few words out of Sunsets mouth were a string of melodious, and completely incomprehensible, neighs, although from the body language she could tell that Sunset was not happy with the revelation. ----- [En Route to Mercury, Ether Ship Good Fortune] David Williamson was on track for the payday of a lifetime. Thomas Bell, owner of a massive network of ether flyer shipyards, producing the vast fleets needed to sustain the British Empire across the four worlds it held territory on, was paying him and his men a fortune for this job. Mr. Bell’s daughter Gertrude had apparently run off with one of her fathers new ether fliers to escape an arranged marriage, and Mr. Bell was paying an incredible sum for the safe return of both his daughter and the ship, a top-of-the-line prototype that hadn’t even been christened when young Gertrude left for Mercury. Williamson, being the only man nearby with both a ship that could reach Mercury and the skills to track her down once there, had been able to negotiate a kings ransom for this job, and when his four man crew had heard how much their shares would be they had moved heaven and Earth to prepare to depart the next day. Onboard the Good Fortune, spirits were high. After all, how hard could tracking down one spoiled heiress be? She probably would lose her nerve and be waiting for them at Princess Christiana Station, the only settlement on the empty world. If she wasn’t there, then they would have a problem, but him and his men were professionals, if Gertrude was swill alive when they found her, they’d take her home to her father, no trouble at all.