//------------------------------// // Chapter 17 // Story: Away and Afar // by PropsValroa //------------------------------// Collapse waited until Magloria pulled the mushrooms out. She was satisfied with the results and moved towards the water. Her horn glows a bit brighter. "Alright, we'll look under the water. I suggest we stick together and I'll light up what we see." she spoke and slowly slipped in the water and stayed still until they entered the water. They could see her glowing horn and golden light under the water. It probably is a bit pretty to look at, too. She looks to see if she can see anything different of the 'rock' under the water. Magloria looked to Jump Start. "You can either set down the fish or stay up here. I'd just prefer that we don't lose them." she said, before diving down as well. As the water bubbles cleared up around Collapse, she could see the rock ahead of her. It seemed to go all the way to the bottom of the river, blocking the entirety of the river's flow. Some of the markings were more obvious, such as what appeared to be markings that cross each other between the pillars. That is until she came to a finer detail on the rock. What appeared to be a small slit had been made in the center of it, only tall enough to let some of the smaller fish through, but nothing else. Collapse swam around the pillar a bit, taking in the shape of it. She felt quite entranced by the possibility of what it could be. If anything she assumes it is ancient and has been here for a very long time. Looking at the slit, she assumed maybe something could be inserted into it and something would happen. Maybe it was some kind of ancient machine contained within the rock. Either way, she didn't think she'd have a way to confirm nor deny that without cutting the rock open. She didn't have the ability to do that, besides maybe firing a laser at it but that might just be wasting energy. Collapse looks to Magloria, "Whatever this is, it is most certainly intentionally placed here. Although I don't really understand the point of diverting the flow of a river only to have it go back into one on the other side." she spoke, leading the way deeper to the bottom. Now that she got a closer look of it's dimensions, it seemed like it was several meters wide spanning most of the river above, and at least a couple meters thick. If the slit lead anywhere inside it, it didn't go very far. "I wouldn't know what it's purpose is either. It could be something as simple as a decoration or sign, though if it was a sign the writing would likely have been washed off by now." Magloria said, brushing away some of the clumped algae to make it clearer to see the rock beneath. It was just rock, no writing or symbols. "Anyway, unless you've got anything else you want to try, I think we're done here." Collapse was a bit dissatisfied with the results of their discovery. It was time to move on to the exit. “Yeah, I don’t really see anything else of interest. We are done here.” Collapse agrees and began to move out of the water. Collapse surfaced from the water where Jump Start was and shook off the wetness from her fur. Her mane and tail were frankly a mess. Not that she really cared. “Alright, we couldn’t find anything interesting unfortunately. Time to move on.” she spoke with a hopeful tone. Magloria surfaced alongside Collapse and shook herself dry as well. The combined spray of water was very unwelcome by Jump Start. The fish she had however loved it, or seemed to anyway. Their increased movements were hard to tell. Magloria sighed. "Alright, mystery to solve another day. For now..." She nodded in the direction of the exit and started walking, with Jump Start on her tail as usual. It seemed as though they weren't very far from the end of the void crags. Only a few minutes of walking and they could see the edge they were walking on began to grow thicker, and soon they had enough space that they were at no risk of falling anymore. Collapse notices the fish and picked up a bit of water in her magic and poured it over the fish. "For you, fishies." she said to them quietly although Jump Start and Magloria may have heard her say that. Collapse follows after them, keeping up the pace. After the minutes passed she notices the ending of the void crags. "Welp, that seems like thats the end point of those. Maybe someday if I get my fly ring back or build a new one I'd like to fly down with a team of equipped pegasi and see what's actually down there myself." she stated. "Imagine if they go as deep as the sky is above us. Miles, perhaps more. There is probably more below than above." she suggested. She kept her eyes on alert for anything out of the ordinary, still. The fish wriggled some more as the water was dumped on them. They seemed much happier now. Or maybe they thought they could swim away? Magloria couldn't help but let out a half-hearted chuckle. "Well you go have fun crawling down into the yawning abyss. I'm just going to stay up here on the ocean where the risks are more calculated. The whirlpool doesn't count. That was a freak accident and you know it." she said. Now that they were back on proper solid ground again, the journey got rather boring again, until an hour later, when there were a few patches of glowing mushroom around them, they suddenly saw a different light in the distance, away from the direction the river was heading. The colour of light was a paler blue, almost white. "Is that another mushroom forest over there...?" Jump Start wondered. Collapse nodded in agreement with Magloria, finding her chuckle entertaining. She knew that Magloria had laughed a few times but what she truly wanted to hear was a true giggle without restraint. A happy giggle. Collapse would likely have had idle conversations with the two of them until they saw a potential mushroom forest in the distance. They hadn't seen this color of a forest until now. Only blue, green, and red so far. "That could very well be. Do we want to check it out? I think we probably could if you are fine with that, Magloria. And besides, it clearly looks different. Maybe it has white mushrooms, could there also be other seaponies over there? Like another group of them?" Collapse ponders. Magloria looked over at the white glow, trying to find anything that could give them an idea of what is over there. Unfortunately they were still too far away. "Hmm... Might as well. Maybe it could be another spot where we can stop by and gather supplies." she said as she diverged off from the river's current, towards the light. "It might have seaponies, but they wouldn't have traveled down this river. It's too far away! Unless the river turns and heads in that direction..." Jump Start pointed out. The white glow got brighter as they approached, until they finally saw what was ahead of them. Turns out it was mushrooms, but they were not the things making the light. What appeared to be light blue ferns were strewn about the cavern, atop most of them were small white orbs of plant matter, like a bulb. Each of the bulbs were producing a constant white light. The light reflected off strange blue and yellow mushrooms that looked different from the ones they saw. While the others had larger or tall caps, the ones here had several layers of flat blue caps, with a thick yellow edge. The very top of the mushroom stalk became a swirled end. The group was still a fair distance away, but they could already smell the strangeness of the mushrooms and ferns. Collapse sniffs the air a bit, noticing the smell. No doubt further in the forest it would be more intense. Looking at the mushrooms she was amazed at how they looked. They were quite impressive to look at. Nothing short of surreal, she thought. Looking to the bulbs at the end of the ferns she had an idea. "Hey, how about we take some of those bulbs with us? They can be like little lanterns. Probably wouldn't last forever without the actual plant itself but we could use them while they last." Collapse suggested to Magloria, her eyes clearly in awe of the place as they approached the area. "If there are seaponies over here I wonder if they know of the other ones. Probably not because we would have heard of this place, I'd bet." Collapse added. Magloria moved over to the closest light bulb covered fern. "Yeah, wouldn't be such a bad idea. They've at least got to be better than those floating plants and their spores." she said as she lit her magic, taking hold of one of the bulbs and pulling on it hard until it broke off the rest of the plant. Even when separated it still shone brightly, and looked like it would continue to do so long afterwards. Magloria took a deep breath after exerting her magic. The fern was surprisingly possessive of it's bulb. Magloria then looked deeper into the forest, spotting something in the distance. "There looks to be... some crystal formation resting in a pond over there." she pointed over in the direction she was looking at. She rubbed her eyes afterwards, blinking a few times to readjust her sight. Collapse watches as she pulls the bulb off, surprised at how hard it was to get it off. "Wow, that is one strong fern there. Hopefully it lasts long." she stated and looks to the bulb closely, it was nice and bright. Then she looks off to the distance at the crystal formation in the pond. "I wonder what that could be." she put a hoof to her chin. Collapse strolls closer to the pond but looks at the water to make sure nothing was going to grab or attack her, she didn't stand directly at the edge just in case there was a risk of that. "Any ideas what it could be?" she asks, looking back over at Magloria and Jump Start. As they got closer they could see that the crystal formation was a large jagged pile of what appeared to be a green glass-like material, transparent enough to see through to the other side. Not the most beautiful crystal, but still fairly pretty. What was concerning was the water it was resting in. The water was *also* a green color instead of it's usual clearness. On the upside, it didn't seem to give of a smell of any sort, and several live fish were swimming about the pool, so it wasn't poisonous. "I don't know. It's still an impressive formation. Would be worth a fortune to the right buyer." Jump Start said, staring in awe at the crystal. "Woah..." Magloria said as she looked at the crystal as well, her eyes wide. "That's pretty..." And Collapse couldn't help but agree, to some extent. The crystal did look prettier all of a sudden. In fact, the mushrooms and ferns around them also looked better. Cleaner and more colorful. Collapse looks at the crystal, staring in awe of it as well. She looks at the green water, finding that highly unusual. "It is really pretty...I bet we could make a fortune if we get a chunk of it, you know? I could un-summon it and take it with us for examining when we eventually return home." Collapse said, smiling at how pretty this all was. "Let me see..." she moved closer to the water and tried to use her telekinesis to see if there were any free bits of it she could grab onto with her magic and pull off. Something felt off about this, to Collapse. The way it got prettier and looking around, noting the visual changes. "I bet you this isn't a normal crystal...I think it is affecting our visual senses. You notice how everything got more like...pretty when we looked at it?" she asked, still in awe of it. Unfortunately, Collapse couldn't find any loose or small pieces that she'd be able to take using her telekinesis alone, and she couldn't take the whole crystal either, since it was rooted into the bottom of the pond. "No. It was pretty anyway." Jump Start said in awe, blinking a few times as she looked around at the crystal and mushroom forest again. Everything grew even more beautiful, she could practically see the magic of elegance everywhere she looked. Nothing looked horrible, or nasty, or disgusting. Even that snail crawling up a nearby mushroom was beautiful in it's own way. A whisper of what sounded like wind flowed through the forest, bringing with it small clouds of pretty white mist that clumped together and moved about, sparkling as it did so. Collapse looks about the place, still in awe of all the beauty in this area. "It must...not be the crystal. It is probably that mist." she pointed to the mist that was flowing in. She looks to the snail, and the other mushrooms smiling at the beauty of it all. However, her focus was on looking for where exactly that wind was flowing in from. Perhaps there was a cave or an opening it flew into from. "I'll laser off a chunk of that crystal later once we find out where that mist is coming from. This is highly unusual for a cave, well, everything is but wind in a cave? Something is up here." Collapse said to Jump Start and Magloria, her eyes blinking at the beauty. Collapse couldn't quite tell where the wind had come from. Puffs of mist came down from everywhere, in all directions, swirling around back and forth. It was quite mesmerizing to watch the display. "Yeah sure. You go create a pretty laser and get the shiny crystal. I want to have a little talk with the mist ball here." Magloria replied, looking straight at one of the puffs of strange air. She walked towards it until she was close enough to touch it. Suddenly Magloria collapsed, the ball of mist disappearing in the process. "Aww. Magloria's gone to sleep." Jump Start said, smiling at the outcome. "Maybe we should leave this beautiful place...? Take the pretty mare too!" She didn't seem shocked at all at the outcome. Collapse didn't feel shocked either.