//------------------------------// // Chapter 26 // Story: Welcome to the jungle // by Hiver //------------------------------// The train let out a cloud of steam and there was the sound of metal against metal as it started to pull away from the station. I looked after it for a long moment before Twilight moved a bit closer to my side, nosing in beneath my chin. I smiled and shifted to look at her, “I’m okay,” I said and smirked, “We’ll see them in a couple of months.” “Hearts and hooves,” Sunset agreed from the other side of Sparks with a smile, “Think Luna suspected anything?” “Nope,” I said and shifted my wings, “Don’t think so anyway. And I think I figured out how to hide where we are in the dream realm.” “Well,” Sunset said and kissed Twilight on the cheek, “I’m looking forward to seeing the city again.” Sparks nodded, “And seeing everypony else,” she agreed before she frowned and looked at me, “What was that package you gave to Princess Celestia anyway?” I grinned, “oh, nothing, just settling a bet,” I said before I looked around, “Let’s head back,” I then added. Us being exposed like this always made the Guard nervous and I didn’t want to make their already difficult job harder than it had to be. Sparks nodded, “We should,” she agreed, “Teleport?” Sunny shook her head, “We’re not in a hurry,” she said and smiled at her, “No need for you to do that when we might as well just take the barge back with everypony else.” I nodded in agreement, “No hurry,” I said, “We’re not doing anything but going to bed when we get back anyway,” I said and glanced towards the sun, quite high in the sky already. We’ll not be back home before noon at this rate. I looked over towards Moon Glow, “We’re heading back home when everypony is ready, Moon Glow,” I told her, “No need to hurry, we’ll move with everypony else.” The pegasus nodded, “Yes sir,” and trotted over to talk to the guard in charge of the train depot. “I wish this place wasn’t so dangerous,” Sunny said softly and looked towards the trees on the other side of the palisade as the gates covering the train tracks were pushed closed and locked down, “It’s beautiful.” I nodded in agreement and then looked at Twilight, “You know… with those obelisks set up… do you think you can tune them to keep anything bigger and smaller than a large pony out?” She looked thoughtful, “Possible,” she admitted, “It will require quite a bit of fine tuning, but should be possible. To cover a large area however is going to need hundreds of them, if not thousands depending on the size of the area,” she said and sighed softly, “They need to be set up in a circle around the area, maybe the entire valley.” Sunset frowned, “Couldn’t you make a big something in the middle, like the crystal heart keeping the winter away from the crystal empire?” Sparks shook her head, “Thought about it,” she said and shrugged, “Making a dome like that, sure. But it wouldn’t be strong enough nor would it be possible to tune it to allow some things through and not others.” I sighed softly, “A hundred times something as big as that thing in your workshop is… a lot of solid stone blocks. And we don’t have a quarry or even a good source of stone. We’re going to have to import them, aren’t we?” Sparks nodded, “Unfortunately, yes. And the best material would be a crystalline structure, not granite as we made the prototypes out of.” “Oh. Awesome.” She shifted her wings, “Actually, I talked to Cadance about it a couple of days ago,” she said as the guards started to herd us towards the dock in the river, “She said that she needed to check, but the Crystal Empire should be able to supply the obelisks. At least the physical ones, we would still need to enchant them, but getting them pre-cut would save us a lot of time and effort.” I slowly nodded, “And how much would it cost?” Sparks shifted her wings a bit uncomfortably, “She didn’t know of hoof. But she guessed that if we’re buying that many, it could go as low as five hundred bits for each.” That’s a… that’s a big, big cash of bits still. And even if we got a really good price, that was likely hundreds of thousands of bits. Sadly, it was something we really, really would need if we would ever get to be self sustainable. We needed farming ground. And as long as pony eaters roamed the forest floor, that wasn’t going to happen. So I just nodded, “Check with her how much it will cost and what’s needed,” I said with a small sigh, “We’ll find the Bits. Somehow.” Well, we're the government. If we weren’t running at a deficit we would be doing things wrong anyway. I just really hated owing money. “It’ll be fine,” Sunset said and led the way onto the barge. I nodded and followed to look out over the water, taking in the scent of the forest around us and the water of the river. Sunset was right. If we could just stop things from trying to eat us, this place would be idyllic. Plenty of food and resources, good climate as long as you didn’t mind rain a couple of times a day. Sparks walked up to stand by Sunny's other side and she looked at us, “Sunset’s right,” she said, “We’ll figure it out. I’ll talk to Midnight and see if we can’t make them smaller or something or maybe we’ll figure out a way to need less of them.” Sunny looked around, “Where did she go anyway?” “She teleported back,” Sparks said and settled a wing across Sunsets back, pulling her closer, “She has a meeting with the guard commander tomorrow about her latest ballista design.” “Well, upgrades are always nice,” I agreed and settled down to sit on the deck of the barge as it started to move. They were right. We’ll figure it out. It is what we do. Somehow.