• Published 6th Aug 2022
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Away and Afar - PropsValroa



An exploratory crew is sent out to investigate the great unknown.

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Chapter 42

Collapse pours some of the milk into Eliza's mouth and gave her time to drink up. When the milk was gone from the Coconut she pulled out her axe and squarely chopped the Coconut in half as they talked.

"I mean, to some we probably would." Collapse spoke to Jump Start, answering her question. "My main concern with the Panthins is that I don't want to walk up to one of their settlements in the open and cause a disturbance, or have them see us as...food. We try to avoid carnage when we can help it. But we have no qualms with dealing with those situations, should we have to." she mentioned casually, looking Eliza in the eyes.

"I am curious what your kind hunt though. I imagine there are probably various things you find yourself to eat in this sort of environment. Usually we wouldn't eat outright meat." Collapse also mentioned as she began biting into the Coconut, enjoying the delicious white inner flesh.

"Well what do you think we go hunt? Should be pretty obvious even to you. It's not like we go around chasing bananas with legs or anythin'. And just in case you get any bright ideas, no, there are none of those bananas with legs, so that we're clear that was sarcasm." Eliza huffed. She wondered what Collapse even wanted to gain from that question.

"Though if you didn't want to start a ruckus with us, this sure as bloody hell ain't the way to do it, and as if I'm goin' to go help you do somethin' like that." she growled.

"Got loyalties to those 'pusses in power' do you?" Magloria questioned, causing Eliza to bare her fangs in response.

"As if. I simply don't wish to partake in any 'business' you plan on doin', especially when I'd be used as your protective shield, so to speak." Eliza responded.

Collapse looks to Magloria as she asked the question. "You seem to act as if growling and acting angry is going to get you anywhere. Now I understand you are upset, but I think we have a few more questions to ask you." Collapse thought to herself, trying to see if anything else would come to mind.

"So you really avoid the water and don't even have ships, then? Alright, now what kind of technology do you have? Do you have anything to do with magitech? Oil? Mechanics? Just asking, since we'd likely want some of that technology for a ship. We didn't come here on a sailing vessel." Collapse asked, wanting to get an answer while she had the chance to ask. Wanting to get some details on something before you went about building it was what any sane builder would do. It was good to explore options.

Eliza by this point was looking rather bored (and still angry), wanting to just end this whole questioning thing and get back to what she was doing. Having a nice nap half in the sun, half in the shade.

"I don't know about that sorta stuff. I sit around and watch over important places, not fiddle around with steam engine bollocks." she stated.

"Steam engines?" Jump Start queried. Eliza realized that she now had to explain *that* part too and gave a sigh.

"Yeah. Big metal thingies that eat up coal, wood and aeternalis stuff. Makes a lot of noise, uses a lot of water, but does some fancy stuff I suppose."

"Ah, steam engines. I know we use those back home for trains. I know that decades ago they were used on ships but were phased out for the more efficient mana-core powered vessels. I haven't worked on steam engines that much but I can say I know a bit about them, but it's been so long." Collapse commented.

"Hmm...perhaps we could bargain for a steam engine but I highly doubt we'd have an easy way of getting it to the shore unless the Panthins were willing to help us..." Collapse pondered, looking to Magloria.

"Any other questions we want to ask? I think I asked all I have to ask." Collapse stated.

"I don't know why you're even considering to bargain for one of our steam engines." Eliza said as she scanned over each of them, "You don't look like you'd be carryin' anything valuable, aside from that fancy looking swimming ring you have." she nodded towards Collapse's fly ring.

Magloria shook her head. "I think we got what we need from her. Jump Start, you have anything else that you have now thought about asking?" she asked, which received a no from Jump Start.

"It's not exactly a swimming ring." Collapse smiles and her horn pulsed a golden color for a split second and the ring began to spin with an electric whirr. Collapse floats a little bit off of the ground. "This is a fly ring. Allows the user to fly via anti-gravitational magic and telepathic thought. You simply think where you want to go, and it takes you there. It's very intuitive...but its only designed for unicorns...I would be happy to give you some blueprints on it, but you would have to figure something out on your own as you don't have horns to cast magic with." Collapse said to Eliza.

She agreed with the other two though. "We can probably let you go, Eliza. Just promise not to suddenly attack us and we'll let you be on your way. I'm sorry for bothering you but we had questions we needed to answer."

Eliza's eyes widened when she saw the spectacle of magic be performed before her. Not the light show or levitation that was performed before with the coconut, those were pretty mediocre, but having a strange device that could lift you completely off the ground? Unheard of.

"Alright... then. Fair enough, that definitely would interest someone..." she said slowly, shock clear in her voice before it calmed back down again. "But you're still goin' to run into other problems, mark my words."

Upon hearing that she was finally going to be freed, she tugged on the bindings. "Smashing! These things were startin' to chafe. I promise that I'm not goin' to maul you once I'm unbound, now do your work."

Magloria drew her shortsword and, holding both the tied up Panthin's limbs and her blade to keep everything steady, began cutting through the plant fibers. As each leg was freed, Eliza rubbed it to get some of the soreness out and partially clean her ruined fur. "Much better." she approved, standing up proper.

Collapse floated a bit forward to Eliza. "If you...want to help us further, you are more than welcome, even to show us around your settlement. We promise we don't mean any harm, but I'm sure we have a lot of knowledge that you could find useful. If that means anything to you." she suggested. Now that Eliza seemed a lot more reasonable, Collapse was more willing to talk to the Panthins in the outpost nearby.

"However if you aren't as willing to show us around or if you want to leave and never see us again - that's your choice. I know that we may not have given you much of a choice here, but I think it is fair to have you choose this time." she spoke calmly, allowing Eliza to choose what would happen next. Although she made it clear that they would only go ahead and do that if Magloria was fine with it, she may not be.

"No, I don't think I'll be helpin' you any further. This whole thing has been something I'd much rather leave behind. So if you don't mind, I'm going to go back to what I was supposed to be doin'. My job while idlin' about." she huffed, and started to walk away from them back to the miniature fortification, only uttering a final "Good day." when she got far enough, before passing around a pair of thick leaves and disappearing out of their sight.

"Well, at least we didn't completely piss her off. That's got to amount to something, right?" Jump Start asked.

"It means that we didn't have to keep her tied up so she wouldn't alert the others, or execute her. She probably won't even bother anyone with the story, given the way she acted. Probably wants for forget all about this experience." Magloria replied.

Collapse looked to Magloria and Jump Start. "Well that's a wrap, let's head back to our camp and hope nothing bad happens." she suggested, although it was unlikely that anyone would believe Eliza even if she did tell the others without any real proof to back up what she had seen. So we are good. At least we know more than what we knew." Collapse spoke, and began leading the way back down the river.

"She wasn't as bad as I expected though. If they are all like that though, then I'd prefer to just not interact with them. Seems like an isolated, if a bit lazy society." Collapse spoke as they walked along the river although she never dropped her guard.

Magloria shrugged at Collapse's observations as they headed back. "Well we definitely can confirm they have things that we'd find useful, so it looks like we might have to eventually head into Carocol no matter what, unless we prefer to wander through the jungle without any good means of navigation." she said.

During their travels back to where they had set up camp, the sun had started to get low to the horizon, creating the usual orange glow that signaled they didn't have much time to get back before darkness would fall upon them.

"She was most likely like that because I struck her with a ball of ice and you tied her to a tree. I was actually expecting her to be furious and completely uncooperative, even with your light show, to the point we'd have to get serious." she paused, thinking things over, "I was also completely expecting her to eventually break her bonds herself. Those vines would've broken eventually with enough struggling or a lucky claw scratch."

Jump Start began pondering out loud. "Perhaps their children are better than their adults? Less aggressive I mean. Surely if we found one just under teen years they'd listen." she suggested.

Eventually they would reach their camp, just before night came.

Collapse smiles to Jump Start. "If their children can be based off of anything we know about cats, they would be foal sized kittens. Wouldn't that be adorable? Small fuzzballs with whiskers, and meowing? As cute as they'd be I don't think any of their parents would let us near them for obvious reasons." she stated, putting a little emphasis on the cuteness of the Panthin young. It would be utterly adorable though, wouldn't it?

However she definitely agreed with Magloria. "I was expecting that as well, really. Expect the worst and you'll never be disappointed." Collapse spoke, believing that herself to various extents. "However we'll have to really plan what we need to do next. Do we go into Carocol and bargain for a map, see what they have to offer? Or do we wanna spend a day or two cutting down some trees and getting a fair amount of wood ready for the ship construction?" Collapse asked, seeming to prefer that option.

When they entered into the camp Collapse would look to make sure nothing dangerous made its home there when they were away.

After her checking around, Collapse knew that nothing had come and raided their little slice of not-so-paradise, or was waiting to ambush them. They were safe, for now.

"It sounds like they would hiss as us rather than mewl and be adorable. After all we'd be big strange things getting close to them. Probably not worth going after, unless we accidentally stumble upon them and have the time." Magloria stated as she set down her supplies near their shelter, reaching in to get some of their food out.

"But we don't even have necessary things to start on the ship anyway. If we did go gathering timber, wouldn't it be better to put it forward for a more immediate purpose? Like a proper house?" Jump Start suggested.

"Either way it's something we should be doing, even if it's for firewood, it couldn't hurt to have a ready supply. We might have to cut a path to where we go deforesting and smooth it out, perhaps build a cart for transporting things eventually, but that just means more wood for us." Magloria approved.

Collapse sits down on the pedals looking for the food. She had her coconuts but wanted to preserve them for later. Already with how they were all in the shelter together she was already getting a little excited.

“Well I want to think that there would be something cute and fluffy for how much we have suffered lately.” she smirks. She was referencing the three of them but made it in a way so that they wouldn’t get it. “I like the seaponies. Like a lazy herd of friendly smiling seaponies as far as the eye can see. So many colors. Each seapony is unique…” She said almost dreamily before she snapped herself out of it.

“We can easily build ourselves some karts. Build three carts for the three of us, I can do that. We can clear out the forest directly around us. We can build ourselves a proper home too. Ship building is no short process so we are going to need that as well so we can start with that.” she states in agreement before digging into her food.

“I wouldn’t mind building the ships wheel too. I could give a unique shape too…maybe a rhombus. But we need to find the proper tools or build proper tools for building a ship…an adze , hmm…” she thinks to herself.

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