Stanton looked over to the pile of wood that was patiently waiting its time when it gets dragged over to the beach and used for something better.
"I could do that. Most things aren't going to be coming after me. I know from experience. Just tell me where I need to bring these, and what I'm using to bring them there." he stated.
"How about we just show you the way?" Collapse asked Stanton as her magic wrapped around some of the planks, demonstrating the ability to levitate things - something Stanton hasn't seen yet. "And we can move these there for now, so we have less to do tomorrow." she proposed.
Magloria put a hold on that plan. "Collapse, it's just down at the beach. We've practically created a path straight there for him to follow. You don't need to go out and show him." she pointed out, then rose an eyebrow. "Unless of course you're going to do more than that." she added.
Stanton on his part didn't look all that surprised by the levitation, given he had actually seen them levitating stuff already. He had also been told about them when they were back at the cage facility, but none of the ponies knew about that.
"Well I wanted to show him where to put the wood, I didn't want him accidentally putting it somewhere where we didn't want to put it, one I show him, he'll know where to put it, for the rest of the pile." Collapse explained, and would lead Stanton to the area to show him where she had in mind for the wood, right in the middle of the clearing.
Magloria sighed and let her go, despite the fact that Collapse was basically going off into the night with a predator they had only just met. Well if she wanted to take suicidal risks, who was she to stop her?
Thankfully it was slightly less suicidal than Magloria thought. They only encountered 1 hungry snake along the path, which was quickly scared off when Stanton let out a growl.
After being shown where to place the wood, he accepted that information and prepared to use it for when they headed back to the shelter.
Collapse would put the wood down and would begin walking back to the shelter. As she walked back, she went over the basics of Equestria, mostly about how there was a species of ponies called the Pegasi, of which none were present in their group. Would be really useful if there were, she thought.
In return Stanton explained that they only really had 2 species of feline around them, aside from 'feral' ones as he called it. Just the panthins and the burmesian smalls. They do come in a variety of colours at least.
Once they had returned, Stanton let Collapse go back into the shelter himself as he stood by the pile of wood, eying it up while thinking some things over.
Collapse returned to the shelter and proceeded to tell Magloria and Jump Start that nothing went wrong. Now he knows where the wood will be piled up for next time. She didn’t have much else to say other than that.
The others accepted what she had told them, by this point they were already preparing to go to sleep. Now that Collapse had arrived back they could do so, though Magloria said they would be taking shifts to keep an eye out tonight as well, just in case Stanton did something while they were all sleeping.
This time, it was going to be Jump Start's turn first. She volunteered, saying she wasn't really feeling that tired, even after all that exercise they did during the day.
Collapse would head to sleep again, hoping that all would go well. It seemed like it was going well, but she wasn't going to get her hopes up. She was most afraid of the Panthins showing up in the night and suddenly attacking them, or the possibility of Stanton possibly being a spy or a ploy of some kind, but honestly, did they really seem all that intelligent to do that? Still she worried.
Hopefully one day, she'd be back home with her mom and her other friends. But, Magloria and Jump Start have certainly formed a deeper connection with her, in her eyes, as she hadn't been stranded in an unknown land with anyone else, really. With those thoughts in her mind, she went to sleep.
Eventually it was Collapse's turn to wake up and watch over things. Seems like she had the third and final shift judging by how Magloria was the one to wake her up. The mild ache in her side when she was woken up was proof of that.
Outside the moon looked like it was getting closer and closer to the horizon, so it would be dawn soon. Interestingly, she could see that the pile of wood that they had was a lot smaller than she remembered just several hours ago. Stanton was also not waiting around at the camp either.
Collapse only smiled slightly to Magloria, finding mild humor by how Magloria woke her up. Upon getting up and looking at the surroundings of the shelter she looks to the pile of wood, in hopes that Stanton was putting the wood into a pile in the other site for construction. Hopefully he wasn't making off with their planks, although she figured he wouldn't have use for them for himself - so it was more likely that he was indeed helping them.
Collapse was proven correct when he eventually came back, nodded at her when he saw her, then proceeded to grab a couple of the planks and set them on his back before heading off again.
Collapse saw that snake again as the sun started to rise, making everything nearby easier to see. It seemed pissed off at her, if the way it stuck itself out of the nearby bushes and loudly hissed at her was any indication. She was with the one that scared it off, and it probably wanted revenge.
That being said, it seemed satisfied to just intimidate her for now. Angry, but not suicidal.
Collapse stayed away from the snake and didn't go near it. At least it wasn't a mega python like the other ones that were seen. When Collapse saw Stanton again, she nodded in approval to him and let him continue the work.
When the sun had risen above the horizon, that was when she woke up Collapse and Magloria, then proceeding to get breakfast ready again. More work to do today, nothing that would likely be particularly notable since they have done the same schedule of waking up, getting to work again and again.
Probably just another work day.
It was when they were busy eating their breakfast that Stanton came back again, having delivered the last piece of the pile. After stating that his job was done, and denying Jump Start's offer for food because it was all non-meat products, he decided to leave.
Before he did though, he said he wasn't going to come by the next night, since he did have to go back to his post at the cage facility at least *sometimes*. They would get very suspicious if he never turned up ever again, which wouldn't be good for the ponies.
With their next immediate task already completed, Magloria looked to each of them. "Now comes the next part, getting help from the seaponies to put the ship together. I hope we have enough shells to pay them." she said.
Collapse accepted the information and thought what Stanton was logical in saying what he said there and she didn't have an issue with him going back. If he wanted to tell the others, he would have done so already. Seems unlikely for him to tell them now after doing all that work.
With Magloria's statement, Collapse nodded. "Yes, we should go ahead and do that." she spoke in agreement, getting ready to go and talk to the seaponies in order to do that.
With nothing better to do, Magloria got up once they were finished with their breakfast, organized their stuff for a short travel and then set off down the path towards the beach, with the others leading behind her.
When they arrived they saw the pile of planks ready and waiting for them. Magloria setdown the other things they would need to put the boat together next to the wood.
It was early morning so there wasn't any seaponies out of the beach yet. They had time to kill on other things if they wanted, such as a certain broken object they had, or they could just wait until some showed up.
Collapse took out anything else they had collected from the settlement from her pocket dimension and set it down, now all they needed was the sails. They had everything else they needed, all they needed to do was begin building the ship and acquire help to do so. Collapse would have tried to figure out any viable methods for fixing the Prismal stone, perhaps they had some adhesive or something that they could just stick it back together?
Jump Start let out a startled yelp when in a golden flash a net was dropped down on top of her, pinning her to the ground and entangling her when she tried to escape. Good going Collapse. Remember you had that with you?
As it turns out, that adhesive that they already grabbed from Carocol beforehand was sitting amidst the pile of building supplies. Convenient.
Collapse just smirked at Jump Start and took the net off. "I'm not gonna be trapping any Earth Pony mares today." she giggled, and put the net 'away' by unsummoning it. Now that they had the materials, they could perhaps look closer at the Prismal.
Once Jump Start had been freed she got up and immediately moved away, just in case Collapse decided to empty out anything else from her pocket dimension. Given the way she seemed to frivolously stick anything she liked into that place, Jump Start wouldn't be surprised if there were still heavy machines in there.
The prismal stone looked just as they had seen it before. It had a rainbow hue about it, an absurd level of magical power contained inside, and was split in half by a jagged line down the middle. Nothing about it had changed since they last checked it.
"Well, hmm. Magloria, how about the idea of using your magic to seal this Prismal stone back together? Like, you encase it in a thin layer of crystal that holds it together?" she suggested casually, letting her take a look at it. While she was tempted to unsummon items and show them off...well, there was one thing that she wanted to do.
She casually unsummoned a chair next to her and then sat on it. "Never know when you might need a chair - hehe, we kind of probably could have used a chair this whole time and I didn't think of it..hehe..." she had to stop herself from laughing.
Magloria looked rather unimpressed by Collapse's antics. Both because she had just brought in a piece of furniture that could've made their lives a little easier, but also at her suggestion for the prismal stone.
"So..." she started. "You want me, to seal an extremely potent resource inside a layer of crystal, without knowing what my magic might do to it in such close proximity and instability, while distorting its overall size and possibly rendering it useless unless freed again..."
She then pointed at the bottle of adhesive that was still conveniently sitting among their building supplies. "Instead of using the stuff we risked life and limb for that is designed specifically for the purpose of sticking things back together, sitting a couple meters away." she huffed.
Collapse levitated the Prismal stone over to Magloria with her magic, allowing her to take it. Otherwise she sighed, a long, frustrated sigh and gripped the arms of the chair tightly with her hooves, and then relaxed slightly as she looked out over the beach - otherwise silent. She was annoyed at herself as one could easily guess.
Magloria took it from Collapse then picked up the adhesive, turning it over to read any instructions it might have. She wasn't mad at Collapse, just very disappointed at her shortsightedness.
On the upside, Collapse passing over the prismal stone gave her a sense of relief, knowing that if anything screwed up with repairing the stone it was her own fault.
So while Magloria was busy making sure that the stone was being put together in the correct positions (*before* applying the glue, of course), Collapse passively observing the beach let her spot the seaponies that were now sticking their head out of the water.
They'd definitely be here for the beach, but seemed reluctant to swim up to the sands given what they could spot.
Collapse would let Magloria do what she wanted with the stone before she noticed the seaponies sticking their heads out of the water. She would walk up so they could see her, and she let loose an innocent cheery grin and waved to them, letting them that it was okay to get onto the beach. Collapse's tail wagged slightly, indicating she was excited to see the seaponies again.
Eventually the seaponies swam up to the beachside and began waddling about on the sand. Most of them started to get comfortable, enjoying the heat from the sun.
Others kept their eyes on Collapse, either giving small greetings or a wave. Seems like this group was here to relax, rather than have a conversation with a strange creature, not that it would stop Collapse anyway.
Collapse looked to Magloria, still somewhat reeling from her most recent scolding. She nervously smiled somewhat. "Should we talk to them about the ship? I don't want to scare them off though..." Collapse said to her, waiting for her approval before going ahead and taking the action for herself. If Magloria approved, Collapse would slowly and carefully approach the seaponies in an attempt to strike up a casual conversation, starting off small first - rather than overloading them with information they don't understand.
When she went away to talk to them, her chair was left open for one of them to sit in if they wanted.
Magloria pointed over at the seaponies. "That *is* what we came here for in the first place. No point in waiting for any others to come along." she said, giving Collapse the all clear to interact with them.
The seaponies let Collapse approach them, and followed along with her attempts at conversation. They, like most who case here, were just out to catch some rays or play on the sand.
Her chair remained empty, the others being too busy watching Collapse or double checking their supplies.
As Collapse talked with them, she would eventually bring up the idea of having seaponies help them with construction of the ship. It was unlikely for this group to be those seaponies, so she would ask for someone to go get, and bring a group of seaponies who were able to to do such things - at least those who could take a look at what they are trying to build.
It was obvious that this random group would not be capable of helping put the ship together, though they could easily contact some others that were trained in construction.
Of course, one of the seaponies wouldn't be a messenger for free. They wanted a bit of payment, and they also wanted to see how much money Collapse already had, so they knew what to tell the others.
Collapse would take out the various shells she had still in her saddlebags, and would show the amount to the seaponies. She had forgotten how many shells, exactly, that she had with her. Perhaps Magloria or Jump Start had the rest, if her amount was not all.
The seapony that was prepared to act as their messenger examined the pile of coins that Collapse had brought forth, nodded, grabbed one of the coins as their payment and said they would come back soon.
They turned back towards the ocean and disappeared soon after reaching the waters. The rest of the seaponies got back to what they were doing, while a couple others kept watching the group out of curiosity.
Collapse accepted this response and would stuff the rest back into her saddlebag, and would then proceed to return to Magloria and Jump Start. "And now we wait for someone capable." she commented casually and sat down in the sand, gesturing for Magloria to sit down and 'enjoy' the chair for the time being since she felt like she deserved that much.
"We should at least get started on things while we're waiting. Should give them an idea of what we're building so they can pitch in." Magloria said as she began to lay out pieces of wood for the boat's frame, disregarding Collapse's suggestion to relax. There was work to be done! They could relax later when they were tired.
Looking purely at the frame's shape, based on the wood they had, it didn't look like the boat was going to be able to cut through the water with ease, but they didn't need it to be super fast anyways.
Jump Start didn't join in on the construction immediately however, seeming hesitant to start without anyone else ready to build.
Collapse wouldn't object to doing more work, might as well pass the time while they wait and do something productive. She joined in eagerly, wanting to get this boat to be completed as soon as possible just so they could leave and never return to this place. As they constructed this, Collapse mentioned a good question - if they sailed straight out from the shore, where would they end up in Equestria? Likely not the dock they left, they could end up in anywhere number of areas, but so long as they reached the Equestrian shores, that is what mattered to her.
Magloria had absolutely no clue which beach on the edge of Equestria they would end up. They had no map with a point of reference, heck, they didn't even have a map, no compass, sextant or even a telescope to see further. They would just have to pick an angle to travel and hope they hit something.
By the time they had got the frame put together properly, the seaponies they were waiting for had showed up. A group of about half a dozen, each wearing the equivalent of an underwater hard hat and some having brought their own tools. Among their group included a couple Kelpi, though it wasn't obvious what they would be using their water-based magics for.
Collapse waved to the seaponies, and would walk up to them. She would show them the blueprints, and tell them about what they needed help with as well as any other details that were important, such as the fact that they needed a material to make the sails from. She'd show them the shells, hoping that they had enough to pay for this process.
At least they did something on their own, such as gathering the materials and putting the frame together.