"I see your souls." Collapse spoke ominously and gave them a gentle poke at their chests. "Right there, balls of light inside of your chests. At least that's what I would think this is here. This definitely is allowing me to see the life force within living beings. You two are sparkling like crazy. Magloria, your horn is really sparkling. Jump Start, so are your hooves. That is where the magic of Unicorns and Earth ponies is concentrated." she stated.
"Take the eye and look at me, and you'll see what I am talking about." she gave the eye to them.
Magloria took it off of Collapse and looked into it herself, pointing it at each of them before passing it on to Jump Start, who did roughly the same thing with it.
"I don't think our souls is the right word for what we saw, somehow. It should've only shown a small space and only on us if that was the case, don't you think?" Magloria rose an eyebrow, looking to Collapse.
"But then what are we seeing? It's something that's everywhere around us, but why would it concentrate in certain places, especially in us?" Jump Start asked curiously, prompting Magloria to think about something. Something they could test.
"Jump Start, keep looking and tell me if anything changes." Magloria instructed. While Jump Start held the eye up, Magloria began channeling a spell, causing a few more droplets of water to appear and drop to the ground.
"Woah... the air just got all bright and funky." Jump Start awed, to the point that she briefly forgot what she was holding, causing the eye to slip out of her hooves, almost hitting the ground just before she caught it again.
Collapse watched Jump Start look through the eye at Magloria. She instinctively reacted, and went to catch the eye. It would be horrible if the eye was broken somehow. Thankfully Jump Start didn't drop the eye. For a few moments, Collapse would process the things that were said by the two of them.
"Well if anything, it shows magical energy in the air and around ourselves. Maybe it is not showing our souls but it's gotta be something along those lines. Maybe our magical sources in our bodies, that's the closest thing I could think of other than our souls." Collapse said, with a hoof to her chin.
"Either way, we are keeping this eye. Who knows how it may come in handy. Perhaps sneaking out, looking for magical sources that we cannot otherwise see." she remarked. "If we can take it back home, which I want us too, then perhaps we can have it analyzed and some other ponies can replicate its effects. It is something I have not seen anything like before." Collapse remarked.
Jump Start placed it inside of her saddlebags, so that she didn't risk dropping it when they brought it along with them. Magloria on the other hand shrugged at Collapse's theories, instead focusing on her intentions.
"Whatever it does it seems like it would be worth keeping around. Doesn't really seem dangerous either. It didn't tell us much about why it was here, but I suppose we might never learn that part." she said, looking up at the sun's location and then to their map.
"That's pretty much everything we can do here, it seems. We should head back to our camp. Hopefully that cat hasn't come back to it yet."
Collapse agrees with that. "Yup. Let's go. We should probably start heading back now, if we want to get back at a reasonable time." Collapse spoke, and began to lead them away from the sight. "Hopefully the cat isn't back indeed. If she is, we'll have to come up with another method to get her to go away." Collapse sighed.
If nothing else happened, they would have reached the cliff. It would be easier for Collapse to take them down the cliff this time, being able to take them one at a time in a gentle, quick glide down to the trees below.
They all began their trek back through the jungle in the direction of their home. As usual it took days to travel back. The cliff was a much simpler obstacle, since they only had to hold onto Collapse as she descended down to the ground.
After that it was a simple matter of passing through endless amounts of bushes, trees and vines, and around dangerous looking bug nests and snakes, until finally they saw it. The river that they had set their base near.
This was a relief to see for all of them, both because it meant they were almost home and also because they could wash away the dirtiness that they had gathered on their journey, and they definitely gathered some.
Finally they were back home. But Collapse's mind couldn't rest just yet. She'd approach their shelter and give it a look to see if anyone or anything had taken refuge inside of it. Hopefully not, but it was good to make sure that none of their things were stolen or anything else like that.
If nothing was unusual, Collapse would have went to the river to wash off her body from all the dirt and plant material. No mater how cold the water was, Collapse would feel really, really good to get all the dirt and grime off of her body for sure.
Nothing seemed to be different about their shelter, aside from maybe some of the nearby plants seemed to have grown a bit since they were here. Their fire pit was still there, their grill was... knocked over but nothing that couldn't be fixed, and their shelter didn't need any repairs.
After dropping off their saddlebags and stretching out the soreness from their backs, they all went and bathed themselves in the river. Magloria made it *significantly* easier to do so by channeling an aqua beam over towards Jump Start and Collapse, basically acting like a water hose for them to help remove all the muck.
Collapse was more than pleased to get into the water. However, she didn't expect Magloria to channel a water beam at the two of them. Collapse let out a long "oooh" sound as she shook in enjoyment of this, making sure to get all of her body as much as possible.
Collapse danced about, as if showing off her form while also getting every bit of her clean. No matter how cold the water was, it was a real relief for sure.
It's a good thing Magloria didn't decide to freeze the water where Collapse swam, otherwise she might've regretted thinking she'd enjoy it 'no matter how cold it is'.
In any case, once Magloria had deemed the pair clean enough she hosed herself before laying down in the shallows and relaxing, only the top half of her head visible in the currents of water.
Jump Start on the other hand joined in with Collapse's dances of enjoyment, though maybe a bit less enthusiastic compared to herself. Eventually though she decided to stop, swimming out to the riverbed and heading towards the camp, stating that she'd prepare something warm and hearty for them to eat.
Collapse would end up doing the same thing as Magloria and layed down in the shallows of the water. Only her yellow head was visible above the currents of the water. It seemed she enjoyed trying to do things that Magloria was doing. Mimicking her idol, so to speak.
Collapse would watch Jump Start go off to get food for them. It felt good to have her prepare the food for them, as the last few days Collapse had done that for them. How the tables have changed, she smirks. A minute or so passed in silence as she enjoyed the shallow water. Before long, a question came about on her mind.
"Hey Magloria, have you ever accidentally freezed yourself?" she asked casually, suddenly.
Magloria glanced over to where Collapse was, indifference on her face at the oddly unexpected question. She didn't know *why* that was suddenly of interest to the mare. Perhaps it was just random curiosity.
Either way, Magloria gave a nod. "I don't know anyone who's been trained in natural ice magic who *hasn't* frozen themselves at some point or another. Usually it's just a hoof, sometimes it's the place around the casting area. Rarely does it get bad enough to freeze them entirely. By the time they have the power to conjure that much ice, they'd have far better control."
"In my case, I got my right foreleg pinned to the ground when attempting to cast a freezing bolt. That's manipulating the air around to form a small tunnel which freezing energy passes through. Mine wasn't stable enough, causing the energy to escape and strike the nearest target. Myself." she explained, very little emotion conveyed through her voice as she spoke, like she would when explaining orders to her crew.
Collapse took in the answer. It was as expected. A logical - sensible response. It was something that Collapse easily could have guessed on her own. It was more of the manner that she spoke her answer in, that being what she was truly after in asking the question.
"I was not like most unicorn foals. I didn't have the luxury of having a unicorn parent. My mom, and the only one who ever had a hoof in raising me was an Earth pony. As you could probably guess, I had to struggle my way to even understand the simplest of spells. While many in my position would normally have someone teach it, Dodge Junction is mainly Earth Ponies. There were no magic schools around, at least as far as I can remember."
"So instead for the most part I would focus on what I *could* do, which was with my hooves. Being a unicorn, I was not adept for that to start. As I learned though, it became natural to me. Every now and then, I noticed that I was able to float a bit. Usually when something would surprise me, I'd end up floating off the ground as an instinctive reaction. I didn't know why this was - but then I realized something. That was my talent. Anti-Gravity." she commented casually. For what Magloria would't probably expect, there was little pride or awe in what Collapse was saying. She spoke neutrally, as if it didn't matter all that much to her.
"The rest was history. I created this fancy ring here as a way to refine, and control my natural ability. I don't know why I have my talent. I don't really care to know either. The mystery is enough for me." she added, letting the water flow off her face a bit. "Although the more gifted unicorns could simply use an enchanted gem or something like that to attain what I have. I don't want that. I want something I made to be my wings across the sky." she sighed, looking up at the sky.
Magloria shifted around in the water slightly, getting into a more comfortable position. "Have you considered powering that ring thing you have with a renewable source of magic? Solar, lunar or nature energy for example? Might need to be purified so the natural tendencies of said magics don't interfere, but would still be a lot better than finding these rare rocks all the time." she suggested.
After Collapse's answer, they heard a call from the camp. Jump Start telling them to come and get themselves some lightly seared and spiced fruits. She even took the time to make them fancier by mixing together other fruits with them.
Collapse looked to Magloria. "Good point. I suppose with those, I wasn't able to find or think of anything I could use for those. But, when we get back I'll probably find something like that." she remarked before getting out of the water and shaking herself off, a bit away from Magloria as to not get herself wet. When she was there and seeing the fruits she smiles at Jump Start's fancier fruits.
"Fancy fruits! Thank you." Collapse said happily as she sat down to eat.
Magloria heeded the call as well, getting up and out of the water while her horn glowed. If Collapse had been watching, she would've seen Magloria rise from the river only damp instead of wet. Aquamancy certainly had it's perks. Strange, useful perks.
Jump Start smiled, happy about the appreciation she received. "You're welcome. I wanted to make something special after our trip." she said. Her ears folded back as she looked sheepish, kicking a hoof at the dirt. "If I had the stuff I could've made something better, but we don't really have anything like flour for a nice meal."
Collapse had taken notice of Magloria's dampness instead of her being soaking wet. She could infer the reason as to why, so she didn't feel it necessary to ask a question about it.
Collapse smiled back to Jump Start. "Don't you worry, this is plenty nice for me. Certainly will savor." she said as she began to eat, indeed she would savor every bite. "The big question is, what should we do now? Gather more materials we need, for building the ship?" she suggested.
Magloria shrugged as she played around with one of the smaller pieces of fruit on her plate. "Well we could do that, but there are also other things that we could do instead. We've got many options."
"For example, we still don't have everything we need from Carocol that we would use to build a ship, or a bunch of other things to improve our way of life here. There's also the other marked places on the map if you still had an itch to explore them. Then there's the crystal eye we found. We've only found it only does one thing, but I can't help but wonder if it does more then just show magic." she said.
"Maybe it could do more if we charge it up, somehow? Maybe if we charged it somehow, we could use it for more in depth scanning? If that's how it works, after all. So much to do, but I don't have a clue what I wanna do." Collapse rhymed on purpose, giggling somewhat as she continued to eat from her plate.
"What do you think? We can vote on it and go from there." she suggested to the two of them.
"How are you planning on charging it up though, Collapse? I've never seen anything like it before, and I doubt you have either. It doesn't even *appear* to accept magic yet it still functions like it does." Magloria pointed out, but she didn't stop there.
"If you plan on finding out what happens when you stick your horn inside that hole and fill it with magic, I don't recommend it, since we'd have to pick up the pieces if you accidentally cause something bad to happen."
Jump Start looked from one to the other, not really sure on who's side to take, until she thought it over a bit more. "Wouldn't there be an instructions manual somewhere? There always is, right? Then we can find out what it's supposed to do and how to use it... oh. But given how old this thing is it might be hard to find, if it even still exists at all."
Collapse puts a hoof to her chin. Once again, Magloria's superior intellect was multiple steps ahead of her. It was enough for her to take her idea back, in a sense.
"Well I don't think there would be a manual for something like this. If there was, it'd be all the way back where we found it. But, I don't want to risk damaging the object at all. Unless, we could find a way to do something with it that would be sure t not break it. Although if we wanted to charge it, we could do a very very small amount of magic first, but it may be too fragile even for that." Collapse shrugged, seeming unsure.
Magloria seemed to consider the idea of only giving it a small amount of magic. She moved over to the saddlebag that contained the eye and pulled it out, inspecting it for any damage.
"Despite having that lump of rock fall on it, I don't see any damage to it at all. Maybe a scratch here and there, but no chipped spots, no cracks and definitely no missing pieces." she stated as she set the eye down on the ground in front of everyone.
"If you *only* gave it a small amount of magic perhaps the risks would be small enough that you could try. I don't know if it would really do anything though, so..." she trailed off, not bothering to finish her sentence.
"Small amount of magic it is then. I will also go very slowly.” Collapse said as she slowly picked up the eye. For a little bit she would turn the eye over in her magic as if checking it over.
“No missing pieces indeed. Imagine if one had sunglasses with the same purpose and function.” she comments before putting the tip of her horn up to the tiny hole. Finally, a very small amount of magic is pumped into it. A tiny dab.
"I remember some story about something like that. Some unicorn was attempting to create some sort of... "goggles of revealing" I think it was called? I don't remember if they succeeded or not... or if it was even a real story." Jump Start casually added in response to Collapse's comment.
The tiny amount of magic she put inside of the crystal eye caused a slight glow to appear inside, but nothing else happened. On direct inspection, she found that the magic she put inside it was resonating with the lens causing it to glow, much like the magic they could see when looking through the eye normally.
If this did anything but show off her magic more than normal, she had no idea.
"It is probable that in Equestria they have developed something like this, or at least had intentions too. For various reasons it went un-noticed, maybe because they didn't succeed. Revealing Mana streams and mana sources, perhaps." Collapse commented casually in reply.
"Well, I only see a slight glow inside the eye. It resonates with the lens, much like the magic we can see through the eye. Hmm. Interesting." she remarked, showing Magloria and Jump Start what was seen within the eye as well so they could understand what it was, as well.
"But... I don't even know if the story was real." Jump Start said again, not really certain as to why Collapse had decided to start theory crafting on a 'maybe' idea that even she didn't fully remember.
When Magloria looked inside the eye to witness the glow, she became confused. "I don't see anything different. I think the magic already dispersed into the local aura." she stated before offering the eye back to Collapse, in case she wanted to keep tinkering with it.
"I'll just take your word for it. In any case, I suppose you're welcome to figure out... whatever else you can about it. Just try not to pull it apart so you can see how it works or break it. I doubt we can put it back together again."
"I don't really think I will be messing with it further, yeah. At least, I am fairly hesitant to do anything like that so I'd rather just leave it alone for now." she commented and just held it in her hooves, looking at it. "Well, there should be two eyes. If its from a statue or something that had eyes there probably were others like this." she remarked, turning it over with her hooves.
Magloria shook her head. "Doesn't necessarily have to be that way. If it was made for standalone function and... some pun that I'm sure they were thinking of when they made it, then there could be any number of those things. Besides, I didn't see any statue where it belongs." she stated.
"Could be a golem eye, maybe? If it lets you see things, a golem could make good use of it." Jump Start suggested.
"I didn't see a golem either." Magloria added.
As Collapse turned over the eye, she could make out some of the finer details that weren't important enough before. The majority of the eye appeared to be constructed out of some cloudy quartz, giving it a whitish appearance, with the main pupil and iris being a combination of an onyx and orange garnet, respectively. This gave it an almost sinister appearance, if colour was believed to show evil. It even had smaller details around the back, thin shards of ruby showing off veins that a typical eye would have. She couldn't even tell how it was made on the inside without breaking it apart, as there was no obvious seams of craftsmanship. Whoever made this had to be an expert artificer.
"Maybe it really is just some sort of standalone tool then. Although I think that it would have been a better tool if it had some kind of holder for it or some accessories." she spoke as she looked over it and took in the details. The details were rather interesting to say the least. The sinister appearance of the eye was well in the eye of the beholder. It was finely crafted, and it quite honestly looked rather beautiful in her opinion, the way the colors were all detailed and blended together.
"Well if anything it sure is beautiful. I really wish that I could make something like this someday." she pondered, rubbing her chin in thought.
Magloria thought for a moment before she remembered something back at the site they found the eye. "It did have a holder, I think. Remember the center pedestal in the middle of all the pillars? The broken one? Plus we found it under some ruined bowl of sorts. The bowl probably fell off the pedestal with the eye in it." She remarked.
"Beyond that though, I have no idea. Seems rather a waste to have it in a holder without anything else nearby. Perhaps it used to be near something, or connected to something."
Jump Start rose an eyebrow at what Magloria was suggesting. "Connected to something? Like... magically connected?" she queried. Magloria simply shrugged in response.
"Oh that. Maybe we should have taken that with us, oh well. I hope we didn't miss anything important there." Collapse commented before looking to Jump Start. "That seems like the most likely option at least in my opinion. Who knows, maybe this thing isn't even 'on' in a sense, imagine what we'd see if that's case." she remarked before laying back.
"Maybe we should take a rest now. It's been a long day. Unless anyone has anything else in mind." she commented.
"Well we won't be able to tell if it's on or not until we find something else about it. Maybe there are more places like it?" Jump Start figured.
The others did have some other things on their mind, but it was unimportant and pure speculation, so it could remain unsaid. After tossing out their old petal beds into the campfire flames, they refurnished it with the ones they had been using on their trip before heading inside of the shelter, going to their usual spots.
Collapse lays down. Once again eying Magloria and Jump Start. She posed with the eye, looking through it at the two of them as she giggled and blushed, unable to hide her playful nature. She'd soon slip the eye back into Jump Start's saddlebag as they layed there.
"We'll look and see, sometime." she said and patted the spot next to her, her tail wagging a little bit too. She was calling both of them over, wordlessly.
Jump Start, noticing Collapse's beckons of companionship once again moved over to her, setting herself down over Collapse's back, her front hooves on one side of Collapse and her back hooves on the other.
Magloria, naturally, didn't move. Even though she definitely saw what Collapse was doing. She instead started to fall asleep.
Collapse relaxes feeling Jump Start's soft warmth up against her. Collapse would gently wrap her hooves around her sides, along with a gentle pat. A grin forms on Collapse's mouth, she was totally in her element.
Collapse looked over to Magloria and gave a sly grin, as if she was missing out on the best thing in the world. Collapse's eyes shuts, her ear twitches, and so she begins to fall asleep with the softness of Jump Start against her.
When Collapse woke up the next morning, she had already lost her furry blanket and her blue eye candy. The others woke before her and had already left the shelter. Judging from the sounds outside of clacking wood, one of them was chopping up some of their wood. Probably for future campfires.
Collapse stretched and yawned and to her disappointment there wasn't the orange soft goodness next to her. Smiling slightly in shame she'd roll over and lay there for a minute and think to herself - could all this be a dream, and would she wake up in her bed, in the Constance? Part of her wishes that was the case.
Either way, it was a new day. She'd walk outside to check on what they were doing. "Good morning." she chirped.
The sound of axe striking wood turned out to *not* actually be gathering firewood. It was the sound of Jump Start lashing out with the axe at what appeared to be large beetles, which attempted to make nest inside their pile of trees. Magloria was helping with her spear, and occasionally her shortsword and ice spells.
"Maybe when we're done, this infestation will tell the rest of their kind to never come back here." Magloria could be heard saying in a low growl.
Collapse would stop for a moment and look to observe what was going on to get her bearings on the situation. She would look to see the beetles being fought off by Magloria and Jump Start. "Should have told me what's going on." she remarked, and with a running start she'd charge up her telekinesis and charge at the beetles in an attempt to push them away with her telekinesis.
"Oh it's not that serious. Just a really really really creepy problem that we should deal with before it becomes actually serious." Jump Start replied to Collapse as she crushed another beetle under the axe. Strange, Jump Start wasn't typically a violent one. Maybe a swarm of bugs get an exception from her?
Collapse's telekinesis did exactly as she wanted it to. The beetles that were exposed on the tree trunks were flung away into the underbush nearby, but aside from skittering around in random directions or flailing their legs after being turned upside down, they didn't seem harmed.
They thankfully weren't very coordinated either, and weren't violent enough to go straight for the ones attempting to evict them from the clearing. All in all, they were pretty easy to remove with sharp and blunt objects.
After removing all of those that they could see, and searching around for a few that were hiding, they could declare most of the beetles had now gone. "I guess that's this jungle's equivalent of rats..." Magloria commented, spear now patiently resting by her side.
Collapse winced slightly as the beetle was crushed although she didn't blame her for it either. In a way, it almost kind of entertained her to see that for whatever reason. She smiled fondly as her telekinesis flung the beetles away from them. Hopefully those beetles wouldn't be coming back and posing issues further.
"Well, there we go. They are gone at least for now. I'm thankful it wasn't anything too dangerous. Perhaps we could find something to cover our logs with. If we go back to Carocal, maybe they have some kind of tarp to cover over the logs we could use to prevent critters from getting into them?" she suggested to Magloria and Jump Start, sitting down next to Magloria.
Magloria shook her head as she began cleaning her equipment of bug slime, running droplets of morning dew over the blade similar to when she cleaned the crystal eye. "I doubt that'll stop them. Bugs tend to work on more than just sight. They'd be able to find it again with their feelers. Plus a tarp isn't going to stop beetles of that size from getting in anyway, even if we nailed it down."
"Though a tarp could be useful for other things. A workstation clean of various debris, for example, when we need to do work without anything getting in the way. Medical, for example." she stated.
Jump Start placed the axe down inside the shelter again, stating that she'd clean it the next time she needs to do the dishes. She came back out, resting after the morning workout.
Collapse looked to Magloria. "True, but a tarp isn't the only thing we will need in the long term. What do you think about going back to Carocal tonight, and getting the stuff we need again? Although that runs the risk of a certain feline finding us again." she remarked. "Although if that's the case we can easily come up with something to distract her again." she casually remarked as she watched Magloria clean her equipment.
After seeing Jump Start come back out again she would smile. "I suppose it's time for breakfast, isn't it? I'll go ahead and get us some breakfast. Least I could do." she remarked, and would proceed to do just that. Taking her time, she attempted to replicate what Jump Start did before with the food. Roasting and making it presentable.
Magloria nodded. "We might as well. While we're there we could see if they have anything else that we might be able to use, after we get the stuff we need such as the proper building equipment that we've been lacking for a while now." she agreed.
Well Collapse managed to make a flame grilled... something. It looked nice, as far as fruits go...? Magloria and Jump Start still appreciated the effort that Collapse went through to try and make it look nice.