//------------------------------//
// Chapter 70 
// Story: Away and Afar 
// by PropsValroa 
//------------------------------//

Collapse immediately moved closer to Magloria as if making sure she was okay. "Magloria, are you okay?" Collapse asked gently and moved even closer to Magloria. "That eye is very sensitive to magic it seems, it's a good thing it didn't hurt you too bad." Collapse said to Magloria, with concern.

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine." Magloria waved her off. It didn't take long before she was blinking her eye again, readjusting it to the world's more reasonable light levels. As she did this, she offered the crystal eye to Collapse.

"If you want to have a go looking at the stuff then go ahead. Just don't point it at that opal stone, or you're going to get blinded by this thing's obvious lack of safety features." she said.

Collapse would grab the eye and hold it up up to the ring piece and the other pieces, as well as the marble. She dare not look at the opal stone with it. After looking at the various things she looks to Jump Start. "Ah yes, nice and orange." she giggled.

Looking to the ring piece she saw surprisingly little amount of magical glimmers running through it. Only thin green lines through it which connected to the socket and the inner part of the ring. If it was active there would probably be a lot more activity.

The marble however was a surprising flux of activity, with all manner of glimmers shifting about the place, particularly in the center. It was hard to tell what even did what.

But there was one spot that continued to blink, slowly, but consistently.

Collapse focused on the marble for a bit with the eye. "Well, you should come take a look at the marble here. It has lots of glimmers and shimmers, but there is one spot on it that blinks repeatedly, but the Ring piece doesn't do a whole lot." Collapse spoke, and handed the eye back to Magloria so she coul take a look at it.

They suddenly heard a squawking noise from up in the trees. Seems like they had attracted the attention of a parrot. "Glimmers and shimmers! Glimmers and shimmers!" they repeated, then added "Glimmers, Shimmers and Sparkles too! Just copies! Squawk!"

Ignoring the parrot, Magloria looked into the crystal eye. "That's strange. I wonder why it's doing that." she said, levitating a small stick over to the marble and prodding that specific spot. The marble clicked.

Collapse bursted out laughing at the parrots actions and took a few seconds to calm down. When she calmed down she noticed that there was a click on the marble. "O-oh right, sorry about that." she blushed before walking up to the marble, still stifling a few giggles about the parrots.

The marble was still a marble on the outside, nothing seemed to have changed after Magloria's poke. Perhaps it needed something more, which is what Magloria began searching for through the eye.

"It moved. The spot moved." She said, turning the marble around so she could reach another spot and poked it again. Another clicking sound.

She repeated this several times before finally, something happened. A circular part popped open like a cork, revealing its contents. Strange red liquid, looking oddly like fruit juice based on it's brighter coloration.

Collapse looked down at the red liquid. "I wonder what that liquid is. I don't know, does anyone wanna take a small taste? I don't know if we should do that but I would do it before any of you would probably." Collapse smirked to the two of them. "It looks like fruit juice, but why would there be fruit juice inside a marble?" Collapse asked, puzzled.

Jump Start and Magloria shook their heads, neither of them intending to drink some strange liquid that's probably centuries old.

"I wouldn't risk it, but then again, I'm not you. Just if you decide to drink it and feel like vomiting, be sure to aim somewhere not in our general direction." Magloria said, letting Collapse decide her own fate.

"No, I'm not gonna drink. Not unless you want me to. I mean, I'll do it if you want me to." Collapse blushed slightly and looked away a bit. Collapse looked down at the marble again. "I am your taste tester, so you don't have to do it yourself." Collapse joked.

"I've got a better idea. Instead of risking one of us, we instead risk something else." Magloria suggested, looking out at the jungle around them. "We could grab some wild animal then give them a small dose of the liquid. If they turn their nose up and die we'll know for sure that it's unsafe for us."

Collapse laughed nervously. "No, no, that wouldn't be worth the effort - and I'm not killing animals today." Collapse said, definitely not inclined to do that. She started to continue walking off towards their shelter, grabbing the materials with her magic, handing the marble to Magloria with her magic so she can keep it with her.

"You sure? I bet one of those annoying parrots would suit that purpose just fine! Its sacrifice would not be in vain for it will lead us to many glorious days ahead!" Magloria smirked, then dropped it when she decided to get serious again. 

"Fine, we won't do anything to the wildlife. However that just leaves us with a ball of mystery liquid, a broken rock and a piece of some unknown device." She got up, preparing to continue their journey. "Outside of knowing what was there, we're almost no better than when we started."

Collapse shot Magloria a slight glare there, not liking that form of humor at all. "Yeah, yeah, indeed." she sighed and continued onward. Collapse didn't really have much to say when they were on their way back, and didn't really appear to be in that much of a talking mood.

With a click, Magloria's magic caused the lid of the marble to close back into place, sealing the liquid back inside so it wouldn't leak as they travelled. 

A couple days passed as they traversed the jungle, nothing out of the ordinary happening to them. They walked, foraged for food, watched for predators and scared them away if they got too curious, and kept each other from clumsily falling off cliffs that were right there but a certain mare wasn't listening.

On the dawn of the final day they came up to the river ahead, and knew that their destination was only a few more hours away. Then they could relax and plan out their next steps.

After a few days had passed, Collapse would sit down and relax as she looked to Jump Start. "Jump Start, what do you think our next steps should be? Would you think we should continue building the ship? We did get those machines after all, which would be useful for building the ship." Collapse said, and looked to Magloria for a few moments to take in her blue-ness for a bit, still mesmerized by how blue she was.

Jump Start shrugged, looking rather uncertain about what direction they should take. "I guess we could do that. Spend a couple days just... building a framework so we can set up planks on it. But I now kind of want to see what else is around. N-not the dangerous things of course, just..." she said, her last sentence drifting off.

Magloria meanwhile was at the river, busy cleaning off some of the muck that she had accumulated on her forehooves. Yep, she was definitely blue. She wasn't facing in Collapse's direction either, so that was probably better.

"Well how about we spend a solid three days building the ship and constructing blueprints, and getting together what we need for that, then we can do some more exploring?" she chirped, once again taking another glance to Magloria, and admiring how blue she was. A small giggle escaped her lips that Jump Start could hear. "She's so blue, the bluest pony ever..." Jump Start could hear her mutter under her breathe.

Jump Start shrugged once again. "Maybe? I dunno. Just... something or something..." she trailed off, mumbling to herself. When Collapse mentioned Magloria, she looked over as well.

"Well if that's what you want, just lots of blue, then go for it I suppose." she half-heartedly encouraged. She didn't really think anything was going to come of it, but she wasn't just going to outright say that.

Collapse smiled and looked back to Jump Start. "Well, you are very orange. Orange Jump Start. My favorite thing about ponies is how colorful they are, just like how varied their personalities are. And ponies are very interesting in general." Collapse mentioned, looking into Jump Start's eyes.

"Umm... Okay?" Jump Start slowly replied in a confused manner. She just didn't know how to react to someone saying something like that.

At this point Magloria returned from the river. "Alright then, on to the rest of the way back?" she asked.

Assuming that Collapse didn't have any detours in mind, like trying to find someone or checking something out, they would arrive back at the edge of their shelter.

Collapse would go along towards the shelter. When they arrived at the edge of their shelter she kept her eyes open for any dangerous animals and looking to see if everything was where they left it.

They couldn't see any threats nearby, but that didn't mean nothing hadn't been here. Several things were knocked over and covered in leaves and dirt, and judging from how most things had at least a small amount of dirt covering the lower parts, the rain had reached here and messed with things.

On the upside, their shelter proper looked relatively untouched. All the walls were intact, as was the window. Though when they checked inside they smelt a faint hint of wild animal. There was nothing in here, but something *had* been using their home as its own. It probably wouldn't any more, now that they had returned.

"And we are back, safe and sound." Collapse giggled, and sat down inside of their shelter and would take out the various things they had retrieved and set them out for Magloria or Jump Start to take at their leisure. Collapse didn't really care about the smell, thinking that the animal was long gone by now hopefully. Looking at the machines about the place, she was glad that nothing bad had happened when they were gone.

Both Jump Start and Magloria set their bags down inside, sorting through their stuff as well. It didn't take long before they had the stuff that could safely be left lying around free from their bags, before they began to tidy up the place a little.

For starters, Magloria decided to throw out their old beds, as they had already gone crunchy. One even had a bite taken out of it, apparently. After that was done, she declared that she'd go and find new ones.

Jump Start on the other hand began to tidy up some of their stuff, setting things back into place and clearing away the planty debris, so they could have places to hang around again without having wet leaves stick to their flanks.

Collapse would help Jump Start out while Magloria went to get new petals for the beds. She was eager to help Jump Start out and hummed a small little tune. An oddly specific one, at that. Perhaps Jump Start may be curious what that tune was, as Collapse went along and helped tidy up the place. Realigning a post there, moving a stick there, that sort of thing.

Jump Start looked over to Collapse while she hummed. ~~She wasn't really interested, but she asked anyway, because there was a prompt.~~ "What are you singing? I don't think I've heard of it." she asked.

Magloria meanwhile was somewhere far out of earshot, dealing with the most irritating giant flower that had decided it wanted to make a meal out of her. Her shortsword was showing it why this was a really bad idea.

"A tune my mother used to sing to me when I was a foal. I don't know where she got it from, but it's something she used to do. I miss my mom." Collapse sighed, her ears going back slightly. "I wonder what your mom was like." Collapse spoke.

"I'm sorry." Jump Start said, giving Collapse a gentle pat on the back. "My mother... she was uh... well a mare of few talents, but she was really good at them. Could definitely cook, but she uh... wasn't spectacular with a lot of other stuff..."

She looked around, tapping a hoof against one of the fire pit's rocks. "My house was often a bit messy, unless we had guests over." she added.

Collapse sighed and shut her eyes slightly, before looking to her friend. "My mother, well, she's a Cherry farmer. Earth Pony. Unlike a lot of ponies, I was well, adopted, so I was not raised by unicorns. I became more in tune with the physical nature of things rather than my magic. I have a few spells, but nothing like most unicorns do. Instead, I chose to build, construct, as you know." she smiled lightly.

"My house was a farm house. While I was raised by only by my mother, others would occasionally come over and hang out as well." she added in turn.

At this point Magloria returned, parts of her matted with what looked like a transparent liquid that wasn't water. A *lot* of petals rested on her back, almost too many for them to even lie on.

"I got some new beds. Maybe these ones will be more *satisfying* to sleep on." she said, emphasizing the word 'satisfying' as she said it.

"Yes, satisfying." Collapse looked to the petals and did a slight giggle imagining the two of them pressing up against her on the soft petals. "Those are some different ones, hey, what is that on you?" she asked, pointing to the liquid that was on her.

Magloria looked back at the petals, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Yes, they're very... different. I will say that this one in particular will not bother us in the future." She looked back at the pair of ponies and began moving to the shelter.

"I don't want to talk about what I'm going to wash off in a few moments. For future reference, avoid the plants that hang fruits in their center." she said, and began placing her loot down on the floor. Their shelter was practically carpeted now. Every spot of exposed dirt covered up.

Collapse didn't question what Magloria said and lays down on the floor once she laid them out. She looks to Jump Start, wagging her tail, and moving her gear over to a certain spot with her magic, now that they had a better floor. A few giggles and winks are seen and heard from Collapse as she looks to Jump Start, making it clear what she wanted.

As Magloria left to clean herself for the second time today, Jump Start came over to inspect the new addition to their shelter, occasionally looking at the obvious signs that Collapse was giving.

Once done with feeling their new floor and testing how comfortable it was to lay on, she decided to just go and do what Collapse expected. She approached the mare, then settled down right to her so they could feel each other's warmth.

Collapse snuggles around Jump Start and brings her slightly closer, wrapping her hooves around her gently and then giving her a headpat. Her tail wags excessively as this happens and she sighs dreamily, whispering that at least they had each other. When Magloria would inevitably return, she'd probably see what the two of them were doing.

Jump Start slowly relaxed more and more as she was wrapped in a Collapse blanket. Compared to previous nights where she mostly seemed to accept the whole close contact thing, this time she seemed happy to be like this.

Eventually Magloria returned, looking slightly damp, and peered down at the pair snuggling. She had no real plan to join them or interrupt, so instead she sat down in a corner and tried to work on some things, thinking over their previous adventure all the while.

Collapse occasionally would reach her hooves up and stroke Jump Start's head a little bit. It was done in a way with the very tips of her hooftips, to make it even more tantalizing and delicate so she could feel Jump Start's hairs. Collapse greeted Magloria casually as if nothing was happening out of the ordinary, but allowing Magloria to her own thoughts.

Well Collapse could definitely feel the hairs and mane on Jump Start's head. Jump Start on the other hand had no idea what Collapse was trying to do, but at this point in time she didn't really care, either.

Magloria gave a nod in greeting back to Collapse, before she went back to her internal thoughts. Soon those thoughts started to seep outwards, and she began mumbling some things. "-if the panthins have... ...broken stone. Maybe at a mine... ...private library? How would we find one? Nah..."

Collapse continued to gently feel Jump Start's hair. Before her ears were poked a little bit, then rubbed gently by her soft hooves. "I wonder how it feels being orange. I'm a happy, yellow pony. I wonder what it would be like if I was a happy orange pony instead, like you? So colorful. Individual colors..." Collapse spoke soothingly into Jump Start's ears, while she did overhear Magloria's monologue, she didn't comment on that.

While Collapse might not have seen fit to comment on what Magloria had been talking about, it didn't stop the blue mare from hearing what Collapse said... and it didn't stop her thinking that maybe Collapse might've snuck a bite of a strange mushroom while she wasn't looking.

"Colors are colors, Collapse. Being yellow or orange wouldn't make much difference to how you felt. It only would matter if you preferred one color over the other... or if there was a stigma, like the thestrals of old. Grey and black was very unpopular to be." she stated.

"Well Magloria, you are pretty blue. Matches your skillset with water and ice, one could say. Your cutie mark matches your colors as well. Blue, blue...blue." she smiled calmly as she looked into Magloria's eyes. "I wonder how many ponies have say, ice magic, but are of a fiery orange, for example." she pondered.

Magloria rolled her eyes. "Yes, I am completely blue. Everyone around me and myself has known this for decades." she paused, thinking about the thing Collapse pondered. "Probably not a lot of ponies, to be fair. Not many unicorns will specialize themselves to elements. It's too... natural for them to even consider, with all the hoity toity 'arcane' stuff they have."

"Plus the pegasi exist. Why would you learn how to control lightning, wind or ice when you would be competing with a pegasus? Most pegasi aren't grey or white like clouds either, and most earth ponies aren't green or brown."

"So... not as many as you might think, I'd say." she finished.

Collapse looked deeply within Magloria's eyes. "I find it interesting with the way you speak about unicorns. Not many specialize themselves with the elements. But you have. You are no normal one, really, a far greater amount of agility, strength, and knowledge than I have seen from any other unicorn I've met - and I don't say that lightly. I don't mean to intrude upon your life though, it is just quite obvious to me you have a far more unique perception and tales to tell than anyone else." she spoke, in a neutral, calm manner.

Magloria leaned back against a wall, her face falling into a calm state. "Well I cannot deny that I have a perception that most don't have. And, I suppose those qualities you said when you compare to any of Equestria's close minded unicorns that they churn out daily..."

She looked Collapse straight in the eye. "I suppose I can tell you this, at least. You've probably already worked it out, but I wasn't taught in the traditional unicorn sense. My teachings came from the shamans of zebra tribes. They taught me that magic was about more then memorizing spellbooks and performing their contents exactly, right down to the last full stop."

"The natural magic around us has much more freedom than that. It can be shaped, but never controlled. Asked, but never demanded of. I've learned to ask the nature of cold and frost to help me, and it lets me shape it in return for my own magic. It's just just shaping magic that is important either. Many things are."

And with that, she looked away and returned to her sheets of paper, seemingly ending that part of the discussion.

Collapse nodded calmly as she looked Magloria in the eyes as she read her paper. "I have worked it out, yes. I have probably worked out more but it will take time and trust to see if what I have surmised is indeed true. It may or may not be." she stated, looking down at her sheets of paper in front of her. "I have never really been one for spells beyond the ones I already have. The ones I have suit me, but I wouldn't mind learning more - the proper way, not the academic." she stated, agreeing with Magloria's viewpoints on magic.

While they talked, she gently hugged Jump Start again and gave her more friendly headpats and such before just laying there with her, her tail resting next to Jump Start's leg.

The only things Magloria had actually done to the papers so far was draw a rough map of Carocol based on the actual one, and had marked certain places that might be of interest to her.

"It's not 'the proper way', just 'the natural way'. I'm not discrediting how unicorns normally learn magic, but their inability to look beyond themselves makes them think it's the *only* way." Magloria said.

Jump Start quietly squeaked when she got hugged, each headpat making her repeat the sound. Even still, she merely shifted a bit to get into a more comfortable position and let Collapse do whatever.

"Yup. By the way if you wanna come over and join us you can." Collapse smirked calmly, putting her face close to Jump Start as she looks through her hairs slightly, as she is looking to Magloria, if emphasizing her point. "I remember that one time where you gave me the lantern since I forgot it that one time. That was the time when we went down, Jump Start was there with me in the engineering room." Collapse added.

A sudden sharp glare in Collapse's direction was probably not what she expected from Magloria. What did she do to deserve that? Well she quickly found out.

"There's a time and a place when you talk about recent tragedies, Collapse. I don't know what you were thinking bringing it up while *trying to entice me into your little snuggle session.*" she practically growled, once more turning back to her papers, and this time ignoring any further attempts from Collapse.

Jump Start didn't feel relaxed anymore. She just felt awkward, now uncomfortably shifting in response.

Collapse didn't answer what Magloria said and just went awkwardly silent. In her eyes she didn't say or do anything wrong, and just didn't understand why Magloria reacted that way. At least she had Jump Start. Collapse awkwardly shifted and shut her eyes, looking out towards the jungle as they laid there. If nothing else happened, she would fall asleep, albeit in a more uncomfortable fashion than she wanted.

The next morning, Collapse was woken up by the smells of fruits cooking and... something oddly bitter. Seems like it might just be another day of doing whatever.

Jump Start and Magloria had already left the shelter, so they must both know what's going on.

Collapse woke up. She remembered...something from her dreams, but it was too hazy for her to remember what it was. She awoke, and looked outside to see what was going on. What was that smell? She snapped awake, ready to face the reality of her situation.

Seems like Magloria was busy cooking something over at the campfire, using their most bowl-like piece of equipment. Fruits were set on the grill next to it, warming up to enjoy for breakfast.

Whatever was in the bowl was the source of the bitter stench. It looked like a mush of greeny yellow stuff mixed in with water, which was constantly evaporating from the heat.

Jump Start saw Collapse at the doorway and gave her a greeting.

Collapse relaxed, knowing that it was safe. She looked to Jump Start and gave her a happy good morning, and did the same for Magloria. She went up to the fruits, and would eat once they were ready. Collapse suggested that today they spend more time on plans and shipbuilding.

Magloria shrugged. "Perhaps. If we're doing that, then this stuff might come in handy." she said as she returned to stirring the goop around the bowl with one of their spoons.

"Do you think we should set up the frame for the boat here in the jungle, or out there on the beach?" Jump Start asked, looking back and forth between the other two.

"Would be better to set it up on the beach so we don't have to carry it, but we'll have to keep an eye on it closely and keep it hidden preferably." Collapse mentioned.

"So... close to the beach, but not somewhere out in the open where everyone could see it? I guess that could work." Jump Start said, rubbing a hoof to her chin as she thought about how they would go about it.

"Maybe that should be the next thing we do. Set up a little hidden area in the jungle next to the beach, but free of trees and other plants. We're gonna need that axe." She pointed to Collapse's saddlebag.

Collapse nodded and looked to Magloria. "Yes, that should be what we do." she spoke, pulling out her double axe and smiling as she pulls it out, as if she was proud of such an inventive creation. "So let's eat, and then we'll go." Collapse spoke.

After their breakfast was quickly eaten and most of their saddlebags were emptied of stuff they didn't need (for carrying stuff they found nearby), they started moving out towards the beach, using their tree-barren shortcut.

After a reasonably straight line of walking once the path was gone, they arrived at the sandy beachline before the ocean. Magloria looked around at the jungle around them. "This looks like a good spot to start clearing, as long as we can avoid any rocks nearby between here and the water that is." she observed.

Collapse agreed with Magloria's assessment of their surroundings and would proceed to stat clearing out once she gave the go ahead to do so. Collapse did the best she could, and would collect what they had cleared out into a pile for later use. She made sure to be precise, and put her best effort forth in doing the job done, keeping largely silent and to herself in doing so.

The day was spent rather peacefully, just clearing out a place large enough that a future boat could rest in. While Collapse had taken out the trees, Magloria and Jump Start were busy uprooting bushes and other cumbersome plants and moving them elsewhere.

At one point Jump Start screamed and ran after she had discovered a nest of snakes hiding in a bush. This one was best moved with telekinesis instead.

At one point they saw a local seapony chilling on the beach, getting themselves a suntan. They didn't seem all that important, so could probably just be ignored if they didn't care.

Throughout the process, Collapse would have helped out Jump Start with moving the snakes with telekinesis away so they wouldn't prove a problem to them. She continued to cut down the trees and move everything. After a while more, Collapse pointed out the Seapony and suggested that they could go talk with the Seapony if they wanted to, since they did indeed get a good amount of work done.

Magloria looked down at the butter yellow seapony in the distance. If they looked really hard they could see whiskers, which is a plus.

The blue mare rose an eyebrow. "Well what did you want to talk to them about? Or did you just want to hang around with them and take a break?" she asked.

"Maybe they are one we've already talked to and we could catch up on things...?" Jump Start pondered as she looked, trying to remember if she'd seen that seapony before.

"We can talk to them about the ship building and such. Perhaps they could inform the others that we are ready to build the ship and we'll need help to do so, like they said before." Collapse proposed, remembering what had happened a while ago.

"We don't actually have any materials properly refined to use, and I doubt they want to waddle through the jungle to help us do it. We need to spend a day or so making some planks before we can just ask them for help." Magloria pointed out as she started walking in the direction of the seapony.

"I've thought over some designs for the ship though. I've written some down, so all we need to do is decide which one we want, then start building to those specifications." she added.

"Right, let's talk about what you got then. What possible designs do you have to suggest?" Collapse asked Magloria curiously, eager to know what she had written down. That was the fun part, deciding on what design exactly they would build.

Magloria opened her saddlebag and took out a wad of paper, spreading several sheets out into the air in her magic. There were 2 designs, one was longer and thinner, making it better at moving through the water, however it wouldn't carry as much and they'd need more resources to build the frame.

The other was thicker than the other one, if only slightly. It would hold more for less wood, but it wasn't as streamlined, making trips take a bit longer. If they could gather the stuff needed for a longer trip though, that wouldn't be much of a problem.

Neither had any spaces for mounted weapons, but it's not like they were expecting to fight anyway.

"Hmm, the first one I like better. Moving through the water more streamlined. We won't be able to carry as much, but that's fine. We probably won't be taking these machines with us. At the very least we can write down as much details about things we find if we cannot take them with us. I do notice that there is not any places for weapons, but I suppose that will do." she spoke, preferring that one.

"Alright then." Magloria agreed, stuffing the sheets back into her bag. Even if the other one went unused, there still might be a use for it somewhere. Like kindling.

"Next step is probably setting up a stand for where the frame is going to go. Then we can stick some hardwood planks together with some nails and we have ourselves a crude boat frame." she nodded.

"Uh, do we even have any nails?" Jump Start asked.

"Y-yeah, I don't think we have any nails. Shit. We may have to go to Carocal to get the nails in that case then." Collapse said with a sigh, but knew that they would have to go back again at some point. "We might as well get anything else we need."

"Speaking of anything else we need, I wonder if we could find and... converse with a geologist. That shimmering stone is going to remain a mystery until we can find a way to get a new one or put it back together. I'd hate to let it go to waste if it really does contain such energy." Magloria suggested to them.

"The boat's also going to need sealants to keep it watertight. They'd have stuff for that at Carocol too." Jump Start also suggested. Boats were fairly complicated constructs after all. They needed a lot of different parts.

She then looked over to the seapony. "So... still want to go over to them? Or perhaps it's better to get started on other things."

“We should talk to them. Maybe they could find some sort of geologist for us to talk to. It’s not going to hurt to talk to a friendly seapony would it?” Collapse smiled, remembering the hugs she got from the seaponies. The seaponies were very calming. All those innocent colors out in the sea. Soft seaponies.

“And later can go back to see if we can get anything else we need. So now is the time to think about that too.” Collapse added.

"I doubt the seaponies are going to bring any respectable geologist that they have out here unless we let this seapony here know exactly what we're dealing with. And even then there's no guarantee." Magloria shrugged, but then sighed. "Still, worth a shot at least. A small shot."

The butter yellow seapony was still laying about, soaking up the rays of the sun. Occasionally they would waddle to a different spot, either wetting themselves again or after finding an uncomfortable seashell.

Collapse would approach the seapony slowly. "Hey, I hope we aren't bothering you. We um, we just wanna talk to you a little bit. I hope we aren't scaring you off." Collapse said as they approached the yellow seapony.

The seapony at this point was busy basking on their back, letting their belly get nice and warm. They looked like they were enjoying it, right up until Collapse spoke.

They opened an eye and looked up at her, and must've declared her friendly enough because closed their eye again and went back to sunbathing.

"What's on your mind?" she replied in a simple manner.

Collapse walked right up to the seapony. "We are uh - wanting to know if you happen to know any geologists or if you know anyone who would know anything about geologists." she spoke calmly, sitting down next to the seapony, but not too close.


[22-May-22 05:43 PM] 
"Rock experts? Can find, don't know them." the seapony replied. "Why?"

"Because we've got a special rock that could use an expert's opinion on, especially when it comes to finding a new one." Magloria stated, lifting the flap of her bag and bringing out one half of the shimmering stone.

The seapony opened her eye again, blinked a few times before focusing on the stone. "Mmm... pretty. Shines well." she awed.

"Yeah, it is not just a stone. But we found a whole ruin...somewhere in the jungle that is quite dangerous, and that stone contained a lot of electrical energy by the looks of it. I don't know how else to explain it. Since it broke, and exploded into a lightning bolt sort of thing, luckily we didn't get hurt." Collapse said calmly.


The seapony looked a little more cautious now. "Zaps? Still pretty, but dangerous. Should keep it safe, away from important stuff." she said as she rolled over onto her belly, giving herself a little distance from them and their stone.

"That's what we're looking for a geologist for." Jump Start joined in. "It's so it doesn't do anything bad when it gets used. If we could fix it or get a new one, then there would be no problem."

The seapony waved her whiskers at the stone, immediately recoiling after only a split second and shaking her head. She clearly didn't like something about the stone. "Safe stone, no zaps? Good." she agreed.

Collapse noticed the seapony didn't have much understanding of things, but at least they were willing to talk. "Well, can you lead us to anyone, or do you know of anyone who knows about these sorts of stones?" she asked, looking to the seapony's cutie mark to see what it was out of sheer curiosity. Her tail swished a bit, obviously liking the idea of being near to a seapony.

"As said, can find them, don't know them. You meet them. Warm sun time over." the seapony stated, turning around as they began waddling towards the ocean.

At this point Collapse got a real good look at their cutie mark. Strangely enough it appeared to be a campfire, with blue flames instead of the usual orange. What would a seapony have to do with flames?

The seapony reached the water and started swimming, looking back at them as if expecting them to follow.

Collapse followed them up to the waves, quickly, before the seapony would vanish out of earshot. "Hey! We can't go under the water though, we aren't seaponies like you are. So can you go find them, and we'll wait here for you to get them?" Collapse asked as she watched the seapony swimming in the water. The cutie mark was strange, though, flames didn't work underwater, did they?

The seapony blinked, then blinked again. Then she blinked a few more times. "Why?" She asked, as if the reason why they couldn't go underwater wasn't well known, which it wasn't.

"Because we can't breathe underwater." Jump Start replied. This seemed to be enough, because the seapony nodded then turned back to the water. With a brief dive to get enough speed, they leapt into the air then splashed back into the sea.

"Well now all we need to do is wait, I suppose." Magloria suggested.

Collapse watched the seapony splash back into the sea and then turns to them. "Odd way of communicating, I can tell you that. Not sure if I can put a hoof on it, but that seapony doesn't seem like the brightest bulb in the box." she commented idly. "We can go back to work, as we wait, unless you think we are done, for now?" she asked the others.

Jump Start shrugged. "She didn't seem to really... *act* unintelligent. Maybe a bit lacking in the language department, but she did know what a geologist was. And didn't insist we should go swimming." she said.

Magloria looked over at the nearby jungle. "If you want to keep working, sure I suppose. A bit more work done on the path from this end. Just be close enough so that I can call you when they return."

"Not unintelligent, but just of a different language. Is to be expected. I will finish working, don't hesitate to call me over." Collapse asked as she would go back to resume the work on the path and other things.

Collapse spent another hour or so chopping down trees, with Jump Start assisting her with clearing away annoying plants in the way. If they had to guess, it would take at least a few more days before they've cleared enough trees and stuff that they could make a proper path for transporting things.

Eventually they heard a call from Magloria. Jump Start took no time at all to stop pulling at a large plant and start heading over towards the beach. She hadn't liked it very much, judging from her complaints over the last couple minutes.

Collapse would finish chopping down the tree she was chopping down by the time Magloria called over but she didn't haul it over to where she put the others. She can do that later. With an almost excited hop in her step, she heads to the beach, hoping that the seapony managed to find wh they needed.

Looking down the beach, Collapse and Jump Start saw that the yellow seapony had returned, bringing with them another seapony, this one with black fur with orange waving stripes across their center. Magloria was already showing off the stone.

Once they were in earshot they heard the newcomer talking "-seen one myself, but I have had them described to me. Its description unmistakable. This is definitely what a Prismal looks like." they said.

Collapse walks up to them. "You said something about Prismal, whats that?" Collapse asked the other seapony calmly. The black fur was interesting. Black and orange, that was a nice color combo for sure. Collapse instinctively wondered if the seapony was soft.

After a brief introduction given by Magloria, Collapse learned that the new seapony's name was Geode Crack. 

Magloria held up the shimmer stone for Collapse to see. "This is called Prismal, at least by the seaponies." she answered. "It's hard to find stuff and leaves the surroundings barren of magic, according to Geode."

The black seapony nodded. "Very hard to find. Spotting a potential location for it is easy. Actually finding it in the kilometer of dead rock *and* justifying the expenses is extremely hard."

"Well just to inform you, we are building a ship here and we wouldn't mind having help in building the ship once we get the materials ready and everything cleared out. You can spread the word for volunteers to help us if you would like. And that is interesting that this is so rare, hmm." Collapse replied, with a hoof to her chin for a second. "Thanks for the information, though."

Geode rose an eyebrow. "Yesss... everyone already knows about that. I don't know why you'd ask me though. I'm more a professional about rocks, not wood." she said, turning to Magloria, "Is that everything you wanted? I do have work I need to do."

Magloria shook her head and pointed at the prismal stone. "There's more. This is just one half of the stone that we found. We were wondering if there was a way you could rejoin the two halves seamlessly." she said, offering the other half to inspect as well.

Geode Crack inspected both halves in her flippers, putting them together to see if they had been chipped in any way. There was a small bit of damage, but nothing too major.

"They can be put back together, but they would require a strong adhesive, one that I'm afraid we don't have. Then just sand down the cracked area a bit to disguise missing pieces and it should look good as new, sort of."

"Just curious, how much would one of the halves of these give us in turn? We could potentially get enough shells, or what you use for currency, to pay some seaponies to build the boat for us, or at least cover the majority of it. If you know someplace we could cash it in, how much would this give us in turn?" Collapse asked, seemingly more focused on what benefits selling one of the stones would be, rather than putting it back together.

Geode looked down at the prismal, then back up to Collapse, trying to speak but failing as she tried to contemplate why she would ask such a question.

When she finally got her voice back under control, she spoke. "The only one who would be able to buy half of THIS would be the treasury or one of those rich snobs near it! You'd be set for life several times over."

Magloria rose an eyebrow. "Are you sure you want to trade it away to someone else?" she asked Collapse in a serious manner. "It sounds like we're never going to see another one of these ever again if we do. That device will likely never function without it."

Collapse looked to Magloria curiously. "You have a point. But do you really want to build a boat all by ourselves, when none of us have done such a thing? We could be here for months doing that. Unless we find something with enough value to cover the cost, and keeping this Prismal for ourselves..." she said, in thought. She was however, extremely tempted by what Geode said about the treasury.

Magloria sighed. "We could pay for labor costs in other ways. Enough of their currency that we could stay here comfortably until we die though? We really don't need that."

"I'm sure we have or can go gather other things that would be valuable enough that we can buy what we need. There has got to be a lot of stuff on the surface, *including from those ruins*, that they can't get easily." she pointed out.

"Also I do not think that seaponies have built boats either, just saying." she added after a brief pause.

Collapse sighs. "I guess nobody around here knows how to build a boat, then. Seems as though we just have to do it no matter how many corners were try to cut." Collapse said with a sigh. "You are right. Perhaps after we clear out what we need to, we can go find something like that." she suggested.

"Uhh... Collapse, Magloria? I think you might be forgetting the reason why we asked for help from the seaponies in the first place." Jump Start began as she sat down on the sands, "They don't need to know how to build a boat, they just need to know how to follow instructions. We give them something to follow."

Collapse also sat down. "Well, I think I know vaguely what we have to do. We'd need the sealant between boards of the ship, which we have not gotten yet. I do not know how we'll do planking, probably use one of those saws and cut long thin pieces of wood, as good as we can get it. We'd need something for the sails too, which we also do not have yet." she thought outloud.

"I believe some of us can help with the sail issue you have. Some of us ranch some creature that produces a silky substance that can be used similarly to the Panthin cloths. You just need to have the shells ready and they can deliver some for you." Geode offered.

"And then we just get sealants from the Panthins themselves." Magloria added. Seems like most of their issues with constructing a boat had solutions readily available. All they had to do was to piece everything together.

Shells for trading and labor, stuff from Panthins, wood from trees.

"Yup. Do we still have some of those shells with us?" Collapse asked, fumbling about in her saddlebags to see if they still had those in their saddlebags, since they did get a good amount before, as far as Collapse can remember. If it wasn't in any of their bags, than it was inside of Collapse's pocket dimension. Either way, once they found the shells, she would show them to Geode, wondering if this was enough to cover for the sails.

Geode looked at the different values of shells that they had, shifting a piece or two about to count them all. She shook her head. "I doubt that's enough for... how big did you need it?" she asked. Magloria gave a rough measurement, earning another head shake from Geode.

"No. I don't even know the prices well and I know you won't have enough for something that large. It's not the stuff that grows like kelp. You're going to have to earn some more."

Jump Start perked up. "Hey, I bet the panthins have some things that we could trade away." she suggested, "...Not that we should *rely* on stealing from them to pay for stuff." She shrank back down as she thought about the implications.

Collapse nodded and looked to Jump Start. Her eyes narrowing, wondering why Jump Start decided to mention that in front of others. She'd scold her for that if they were alone, but didn't comment on that out of respect for Jump Start. "Right. We'll see what we can do. At least we know we have more options now." Collapse nodded to Geode in a thankful manner.

Geode had started looking at Jump Start in an odd way as well. She didn't say anything however, since disrespecting those that may possibly bless their underwater world with a Prismal, an object of untold potential, wouldn't be taken kindly by the others.

Magloria took a step back. "I think this concludes this meeting. If we want to give the prismal away, we'll let you know. Until then though I think we best part ways." she stated, earning an agreement from both seaponies.

"Goodbye, then." Geode replied, pushing themselves back into the shallows as they began to leave.

"Please be well, seaponies." Collapse said to the seaponies as they would leave. She would start to walk back to their work area and gave Jump Start a slight glare. "You shouldn't have said anything about stealing from the Panthins while they were around." she said in a serious manner, but not a disrespectful one as they moved away from where they were.

Jump Start lowered her head in shame as they made their way back. "I know, I'm sorry. Not having laws and other ponies around and stuff anymore is making it hard to... keep civil." she replied.

"So, really the only thing we need to do now to build our boat is raid the Panthins for the third and final time. How hard could it really be though? Even when they knew we were there they didn't stop us getting away." Magloria said.

"It's okay, Jump Start. Just gotta keep going and we'll eventually be back home. When we get back home, I wanna give you the biggest and yummiest chocalate chip cookie there is." Collapse said in a hopeful manner and looked to Magloria. "Indeed. I think it's been long enough that things have simmered down already for that." she added.

Eventually they get back to camp. At this point the sun was just barely starting to cast shadows over everything as it slowly approached the horizon. Magloria set down her bags for now and looked to Collapse.

"I still don't think we should sell the prismal to the seaponies, just in case you're still thinking about that. It's easy money sure, but money can be made in other ways. It sounds like you can't just make another prismal so easily." she said.

"If that really is the case than I would like us to keep it. Perhaps we can find some other ruin with something else, or go back to the ruin we were in and find something else of value to give to them." Collapse suggested, setting her bags down and laying on one of the petals after taking her boots off, looking to Magloria.

"There is probably tonnes of stuff that we could find down in those ruins. Not just the weird machines either. Surely they would've had a store room of sorts, filled with materials that we could get." Jump Start suggested as she sat down on a petal, now just thinking of the stuff they could've found if they had a few days to search.

"Imagine if they had vaults filled with gold and gems and priceless magical artifacts..." she said aloud while imagining.

Magloria saw the look she was being given and, after rolling her eyes, she moved over to the spot *next* to Collapse and sat down. It was close, but not too close.

Collapse's tail wags a little bit as she looks to Magloria, but didn't move any closer or say anything to her. She didn't want to 'scare' her off. "Well, we'll just have to find out and see. I could only hope that would be the case. We could spend tomorrow moving the wood to the cleared out location and doing whatever else we need, and tonight, we can plan on what we need to take from the Panthins." Collapse suggested.

"I think we've already planned on what we're taking from the Panthins. Sealant for the wood, adhesive for the prismal, maybe something valuable for the seaponies though that one is optional. We can always find something somewhere else." Magloria said.

"And anything else we come across along the way we might find useful?" Jump Start asked.

"...Maybe. We shouldn't just take for the sake of taking though." the blue mare replied, looking away.