Sunset Expedition

by MysteryMan97

Chapter 2

Expedition Log: Day 2

I have successfully managed to stabilize the enchantments on my equipment to operate in the new low-magic environment. However, I am having difficulty with even the most basic of magic in this reduced environment, even basic telekinesis is slowly draining my reserves. I have begun to look into the basic structure of many of the spells I use to see if I can modify them to be more efficient, but that sort of work will take time. On the bright side, I seem to have nothing but time, 20 moons at 30 days per moon gives me 600 days until I can go home, and since there aren’t any stores on this world for me to buy food or equipment, that means I need to be smart about this if I want to do more than survive, and I do.

I came to this world to get out from under Celestia’s shadow, and that is exactly what I am going to do. Figuring out how to become a princess by myself in a low-magic environment might be impossible, but not only surviving in but taming an alien world, one without magic? If anything will get Celestia to acknowledge that I deserve to be a Princess it’s that. Cadence just did some sappy trick with love magic and an artifact to ascend, and this is definitely going to be more impressive than that. Once I’ve ascended, I’ll build a more stable portal between these worlds and start recruiting ponies for my new realm, and finally Celestia will have to treat me as an equal.

I have a lot of work to do though, so I will be keeping this log to keep track of my plans, long and short-term, and my discoveries. I’ve never done this before, but it can’t be that much harder than keeping notes in class.

Basic needs:

1. Food: Native plant life is edible, confirmed with Clover the Clevers “Digestibility Examination” spell prior to loss of Equestrian magic.
2. Water: Main river is strangely brackish for a river of its size, but the tributary by my camp has plenty of clean water, although without magic to bolster my immune system I should begin boiling any water I drink to prevent infections.
3. Shelter: My tent is the best I could acquire in Canterlot with only a day to prepare, and I will be shepherding reserve magic to keep as many of its enchantments functional as possible. If it breaks, I have books on the construction of various shelters.

Observations

1. Directions: The sun does not move in this world, so I’m just going to say it’s to my west in an eternal sunset (could be sunrise, but I like my way better and nopony else is here to argue with me), meaning the river flows from south to north.
2. Civilization: As the Starswirl's notes indicated, this world appears untamed and wild. From my limited observations I have seen no sign of civilization, and given the size and slow current of the large river nearby I believe that if any civilization existed nearby there would be regular traffic along it. The lack of any ships or boats seemingly confirms my hypothesis, but further observation is needed.
3. Weight: Everything seems much lighter on this world, and while that’s making it easy for me to carry things around, it is taking a while to adjust, and I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever really get used to it.

Plan

1. I have food, water, and shelter. So long as I maintain my equipment properly, I will be able to last the next 20 moons in… well not in comfort, but it will be enough to live off of as I research this world and prepare to ascend.
2. As the book noted, Starswirl did not explore this world beyond verifying that it was different from the original destination of the spell, which means I, Sunset Shimmer, have the right to name everything I see.
3. Given the eternal sunset of this world, I will need to work out a way to keep time. My watch is decent so long as it works, but if it breaks I will find it difficult to keep track of time, and in the last three days I have not seen a moon that I can track, so without an alternative if my watch breaks I will lose track of time. Thankfully the portal lets out a burst of energy while it’s open, so even if my watch breaks I’ll be able to tell if it is open.

Expedition Log: Day 3

My watch runs on magic and ran out while I slept. I tried to recharge it and it was annoyingly difficult, I needed to dump all the energy stored overnight into the air so the enchantment would pull in some, and it’s nowhere near fully charged. Given that, I now have no economical way of charging this watch, and without it I have no way of checking time. Without the day-night cycle, I have to guess when to sleep and eat, and I can no longer date my entries accurately. To avoid confusion if anypony reads this in the future, I will from now on use “cycles” to refer to one period between waking up and going to sleep. Once back to Equestria, it will be interesting to see how far I strayed from a normal day length.

Additionally, I will not be writing an entry every day, I only have so much paper and ink, and I need to conserve both. I’ll only write when something important happens.

Expedition Log, Cycle 13

These last few cycles have been difficult, but I think I’m finally able to start exploring. I’ve started to preserve some of the plants I’ve harvested to carry with me on exploration trips. While I don’t think I’ll ever run out of food with the forest nearby, preserving food lets me only make a trip to gather more every few cycles instead of heading to the woods every time I’m hungry, and having stocks of preserved food means I can focus on covering ground when exploring instead of breaking to find food.

Additionally, I have used what magic I do have to make my camp more permanent, I used the instructions in one of my books to create a lean-to out of sticks to shelter my equipment and whatever samples I bring back from expeditions, and I used one of my tarps to cover my magic circle from the elements, although I’m going to need to find a large stone to carve it into if I want a more permanent solution. I’m also looking into making something more permanent than a tent, but everything I have requires magic, so it will take a long time before I’m sleeping in an actual building. Even worse, even basic transfiguration is to draining, so even after I have a permanent shelter I’ll need to hunt for some plants nearby to make blankets and a quilt!

In other news, I have decided on names for my immediate surroundings. While I could name everything after myself, my research before this trip told me that was considered poor form for geographic features.

• The large brackish river that runs from horizon to horizon, I have named The Great River (note to self, I might not be the best at naming things)
• The tributary that I have been drinking from I have named Starswirl’s River after the creator of the mirror that brought me here, since it was probably the only landmark he saw if he didn’t do any exploring.
• There are mountains to the northwest, I can barely make them out with my eyes, and looking at them with my field telescope is dangerous now that the protective enchantments have run out of energy, but I can tell that they are at least a mile above The Great River, likely taller. I have named them the Rockhoof Range after one of Starswirl's companions in the Pillars of Equestria.

I will be making a journey south to explore the forest, if I am lucky I will find some plants that taste better than the grass and reeds of the riverbank.

Expedition Log: Day 17

My exploration of the forest, which I am naming Meadowbrook Forest to keep up the Pillars of Equestria theme for this region, went decently. I’ve had some experience with wild, untamed nature before, but this was something else. I didn’t recognize any of the animals or plants, and even with the battery crystals I brought I only tested out a couple dozen plants before I ran dangerously low. On the bright side, I found a few that were not only edible but actually tasted good. With how far my camp is from the forest it’ll be a hassle to bring it back to camp whenever I want food that tastes good, so I’ll have to either relocate away from the portal or set up a garden, or something like that. Maybe I can relocate the portal obelisk?

If I’m being honest with myself, I’m starting to regret this plan. It’s only been a couple of weeks since the portal closed, and the lack of company is starting to get to me. I think I spent so long shunning everypony else that I thought I would be able to take being the only pony on a planet for 20 moons easily, but that’s not true.

I’ll start looking into the portal obelisk, maybe there’s a way to get it to open more than once every 20 moons, so I can sneak in while Celestia isn’t expecting me and… I don’t know, find somepony who wants to come with me I guess? This planet is beautiful, so wild and untamed, and if it wasn’t for the low magic levels and the loneliness I’d be having the time of my life right now, so maybe if I re-open the portal for more magic and to bring other ponies in…

In any event, that’s more of a long-term goal. I don’t even know if the portal can be modified like that yet.

Expedition Log: Cycle 31

I need to get better at keeping this log updated. Since my last entry I began construction on a boat to cross the Great River, but it’s been slow going. I’m trying to hollow out a log like the book shows me, but between the magic I’m spending to try and set up a decent permanent shelter and my research into the portal obelisk I’m running low on energy constantly. The background magic levels have stabilized at approximately 2.3%±.2% of Equestrias background levels for the last week, and that’s better than nothing, but it’s just not enough for what I want to do. A lot of my equipment and most of the survival techniques in these books rely on a steady supply of magic, and without it I’m running into problems, which is alright for as long as I stay in the area near my camp, but it is ruining my plans for anything more than surviving.

In unrelated news, it turns out alien plants aren’t the best for my diet. I apparently was suffering vitamin deficiencies, something that I blew nearly my entire reserve of magic to determine, and then I spent the next week blowing through my reserves as fast as they refilled trying to find plants that will fill that part of my diet. The good news is I found a plant that does that. The bad news it tastes horrible. I’ve named it Dirt Flower because it’s a flower and it tastes like dirt. I had to eat nearly a pound of it before my symptoms finally went away, and I’m hoping that was just due to how long I went without those nutrients, because if I have to regularly eat that much I’ll go insane.

I’ll try cooking it with some other plants, maybe if it’s only part of a meal it’ll be less disgusting.

Expedition Log: Day 42:

My canoe worked… decently. I was able to make it over to the other side of the river, but I burned a lot of energy. On the other side I tested a few plants, made some notes, and got a better view of the area nearby.

Some observations:

• The plants on the other side are similar but different than the ones I’ve grown used to, but I don’t know enough about botany to tell why. Something interesting to keep in mind for the future.
• The Rockhoof Mountains are definitely huge, with some of the peaks about as tall as Mount Canterlot.

• The wildlife is much more aggressive on this side. On my side near my camp, I was lucky to not see any large predators, while over here I had to burn precious magic reserves to keep some strange creatures that I can only describe as a giant lizard with a fin on its back.

  • The creature had crystals embedded in the base of its fin, as much as I dislike the idea of hunting a few more crystals could open up a lot of options magically, even if just as extra reserves for exploring.

• While naming things like mountains after yourself is in bad taste for explorers, it’s normal to name things like forts and encampments after members of an expedition, and as the leader of the Sunset Expedition I have declared that my campsite will be named Camp Sunset after our expeditions chief biologist, and chief thaumatologist, and primary sponsor, and quartermaster, and secretary…

  • The more I think about it, the more I realize that maybe I should have brought more ponies with me...

I’m going to take a short nap to replenish my reserves (I set wards to warn me if that lizard comes back) and then I’ll cross back to my camp. With how much energy just getting here and spending a few hours took, I think I’m going to have to postpone any further trips across the river until I get a solution implemented.

Expedition Log: Cycle 43

The trip back was a nightmare. I was a little over halfway across when something came up from the deep and attacked my canoe. I didn’t get a good look at it, it kept ducking underwater and jutting out only for a few moments at a time, but whatever it was cracked my canoe open. I managed to save almost everything, but I lost a pair of thaumaturgical batteries and some food, and make it to shore by shoving everything in my saddlebags and activating their waterproof enchantments with one battery each before dumping every other scrap of power into a teleport to get myself as close to my camp as possible. I ended up a little over 100 yards from the shore, and I swear I will remember the sheer terror and fear I felt swimming to shore for the rest of my life. Every plant brushing my hoof was a monster out to eat me, every fish that swam up to me was about to chow down for a dinner of unicorn meat, and the current of the river itself meant that when I finally made it to shore I was actually north of the junction between the Great River and Starswirl’s river.

I was able to pull the batteries keeping my bags waterproof out and use them to teleport across the river to camp, and then I passed out in my tent as the adrenaline wore off. With the loss of two of my batteries, I think it’s safe to say that unless I can make more somehow any trip across the Great River is out of the question. Also, just in case there are predators like that on this side that I haven’t seen yet, I’m going to ring the camp in sharp sticks. It might not keep them out, but mixed with magic and it should slow even the big ones down long enough for me to wake up and start teleporting.

This trip was a wakeup call for me, there are things in these woods that would eat a pony like me alive without hesitation, and I need to be ready for them.

Author's Note:

Alright, some hints from Sunsets journal as to how her expedition is going, I've got a bit of this written out to explain how her character changes from the Sunset who left Equestria to the Sunset that makes first contact with the humanity of this universe

Comments

[AxelFones]

I’m enjoying the journal format so far. Good way to keep things moving.