Away and Afar

by PropsValroa

Chapter 50

While Magloria would go and wake up Jump Start Collapse would approach Ash and watch her in the bag for a few passing moments before grabbing her with her magic and pulling her out gently.
"I don't believe we told you but the cause of our poisonous planty colors was around Carocal. On the far side of it, actually. I don't remember exactly what it was since we can't see well in the night, but we were sneaking around that area and by the time we left we noticed our coat colors had turned colors." she said to Ash.

Collapse had turned away just as she saw Magloria about to give Jump Start a kick, thanks to not responding to her previous pokes. Hopefully it was a light kick.

Ash was pulled out holding onto one of the small ice crystal figurines that Magloria made. She dropped it upon seeing Collapse, causing it to fall onto the ground, undamaged, but dirty.

"Oh, you're not supposed to be all funny coloured? Then where is it? The thing that made you this colour? I'll find it and get rid of it so you no longer have to poison yourselves with your funny colours!" Ash stated, once again rudely listening to only half of what Collapse said.

Collapse looks to Ash. "It's somewhere in Carocal or just beyond Carocal. I don't know exactly what happened so your going to have to search all over for it. Could you do that for us, please?" Collapse asked Ash, hoping she was able to convince her otherwise. Collapse would deal with the dirty ice crystal figurine shortly, hopefully after Ash has left.

Ash nodded frantically. "Yes, I can do that! Then you can finally be not crazy anymore. What's it look like? I'm sure I'll be able to find it in the first minute of searching!" she asked. She looked like she desperately wanted to know.

"Ow, was the mane really necessary?" Collapse heard Jump Start say, followed by Magloria giving a blunt "Yes. 2 kicks didn't work." in response.

"Like I said, we can't see in the dark so just look for anything bright and colorful maybe, but I don't know. Go look, ask around, do whatever you need to do!" she said to Ash before looking to Jump Start and Magloria. "Well, I don't mind being kicked awake next time." she grinned weirdly.

Ash gave one final nod then sprinted off into the jungle, in the direction of the river and Carocol.

Collapse saw a sleepy Jump Start sipping on some refreshing water from their crystal flask, all the while rubbing one of her legs to rid herself of the dull ache she now had.

Magloria looked unimpressed by Collapse's willingness to take punishment like that. "Figures you would enjoy being on the receiving end of my hooves. But let's try and forget that now, or at least I'm going to." she replied, walking over while looking around for the missing cat.

"Did she leave?" she asked.

Collapse would blush ever so slightly at Magloria's comment about her hooves there. It was true, and it was really hard to suppress the giggles and smiles that she wanted to make.

To Magloria's question she would nod. "She's gone. Unfortunately she got your figurine here dirty though." Collapse spoke, wiping off the figurine with her magic gently the best she could. "But at least we got a problem out of the way. What should we do now? More logging? Setting up things? I think we can do that now that Ash is out of the way." Collapse suggested, seemingly forgetting what Magloria said about her hooves.

Magloria quickly took the figurine off of Collapse after she cleaned it and began inspecting it herself, making sure that it had received no damages. Once she had made sure that it hadn't suffered a scratch, she gently placed it back into her bag.

"We can do whatever, really. Well except for proper construction, that's still a poor choice..." She began pacing around the tree that they were set up under. "Though... we could use some of the larger branches of the trees we cut down to give this place a little upgrade. Make it so we've got more room inside so it's less like we're living in a tent, and more like we're living in a larger tent. If we find enough vines we might even be able to tie together everything so it won't fall apart if a strong wind blows through." she said.

Collapse agreed with that and accepted the idea. "Alright, we'll do that then. I have an idea of how to make a larger axe, so to speak." she spoke and took out the two axes she had. "We can tie these axes together with vines, having their blades close together like this." she spoke, moving the axes with her telekinesis in a certain way so that the heads were ontop of each other, for a larger cut. "So we can cut faster." she smiled.

When they would start working she would go off and find some vines to tie together the two axes so they are nice and tight together. Once that was done, she would work on cutting the larger branches of the nearby trees and finding more vines, as Magloria suggested.

Magloria 'hrmm'ed at the idea that Collapse had. "While it would increase the cutting power you could put into each swing, it also makes it a bit over twice as heavy. That could prove an issue if you need precision or get tired." she pointed out.

But in the end, she simply shrugged. "But you're the one using the axe, I suppose. If you can handle not dropping it accidentally, then suit yourself."

Jump Start came along with Collapse's attempt to look for some vines. They could go back to the place they used to tie up Eliza, but that was a bit far for just looking around.

So instead a bit of walking around the general area of the camp was done. Took a bit to find any suitably thick vines, and thankfully it wasn't too far away. As Collapse was busy doing her twin axe crafting, Jump Start gave a head start on vine collecting.

In the end they had a large bundle of coiled vines, and a cluster of big branches to bring back. Whether she cut the branches near the camp or where they found the vines would determine how much of a problem they'd be to bring back, given their combined weight.

Collapse had cut the branches at the spot they had found them at. It was better to cut them there and then so they wouldn't have as much problem carrying them across the distance from the camp. She cut the branches to a size she deemed appropriate, allowing them to be carried back to camp easier. However, she had them cut at certain ways so they would have a good amount of sturdiness to them either way for structural integrity.

When they returned to the camp she would begin setting up the branches to expand the shelter with while allowing Jump Start to tie them together with the vines she had found, since she was the one who had collected the most of the vines. Collapse notices that she has more difficulty using the combined axe, but it was worth it in her eyes because it had made it easier to cut.

Jump Start only managed to carry along a few branches back with Collapse. Not because she wasn't strong or the branches were heavy, but because she had no way of taking hold of them well, aside from biting onto one and dragging it while threading a couple others through the vines on her back.

This left Collapse with a bunch of wood that had significant weight to them when carried all at once, requiring a lot of levitation magic just to keep them steady and moving.

Thanks to some of the longer branches, they found out that they could reach one of the lower branches of the tree. Using that, they could make a proper exit doorway instead of using a gap in their walls.

As for the rest of the place, it was a simple matter of digging out holes in the ground for the end of the branches to go, having Jump Start shove the big branches straight down into the hole so it wouldn't ever move, while Magloria and Collapse tied the other end to the tree and other large branches.

With that done they simply had to fill in the gaps in the framework with whatever they could use, like smaller branches, various plants or even mud to create suitable wooden walls, with no gaps.
When it was done Collapse would proceed to gather up small sticks, leaves, and mud to begin filling up the gaps in the frame. With her magic she would combine both mud and sticks, covering the whole thing over with plants so it would look better. While she had the time she proceeded to take the time to gather as much leaves as possible to cover over most of, if not the entire thing. Works for camouflage.

When they were inevitably done with the process Collapse would step back and take in the sight of the 'completed' shelter to see what it looked like in comparison to what it was previously. She would smile at a job well done. "You know, there is nothing more satisfying than being able to look back and see what you were able to do, and pat yourself on the back for doing a good job in doing so." she remarked, a bit proudly to the others.

By the time they were done, they had spent the entire day doing nothing but gathering and putting together the stuff.

Compared to what they had before, which was basically a cone around the trunk of the tree with sticks, twigs and leaves everywhere, this was a significantly bigger... cone, but this time it had a proper entrance, looking like a protruding triangle piece out the side of the cone. Internally they now had the proper room to move about instead of tripping over other sleeping bodies, even though it was still mostly dirt floor.

You could still see where a lot of the branches were, but the mud and leaves concealed a lot of the smaller ones that made up the wall, except for in one spot where Jump Start had deliberately left as a window, so it wasn't too dark inside.

"Gotta say, it doesn't really look all that great, but it's bigger than before and keeps out the wind and rain better, so I'm sure it's fine anyway." Jump Start said, not really fond of the look of the mud. She also wasn't fond of the mud she got over her hooves and coat during the building process.

Remarking over the finished work she was satisfied with the larger size. It looked kind of weird and unappealing but if it works, it works and that's all that matters. Maybe Collapse could find some flowers to put on it to make it look a bit more appealing to the eye but that wasn't needed all that much.

"Well, it's nice and big now. At least we can have more room for ourselves and our gear when we inevitably get more tools and such. I think its time for us to lay down, maybe examine the blueprints and such in greater detail?" Collapse suggested before entering the newly enlarged shelter and taking out the various maps and such she found.

Magloria pointed up at the sky, where it was already starting to get dark. "Unless you prefer to act like a torch while we read, or we set up one a campfire tonight, we're not going to be doing much examination." she stated.

When Collapse entered she quickly found that to be true. Outside they could just barely read them, but inside the shelter where light was mostly blocked off? Really dark. Also a flat, clean surface for putting their stuff wouldn't go unappreciated either, given all they had was the petal beds (which at this point were starting to become tattered and dead) and the dirt floor.

Collapse would look at the floor and notice that is the one thing they left out in adding to. “I think we should have gotten a floor in here. Maybe use some sticks and leaves to cover over the dirt floor.” She remarked as she sat down pulling out the blueprints and maps.

“I will be your light in the dark, sure. I don’t mind.” Collapse spoke that like a little more softly for some reason as she used her soft golden horn to light up the maps as she waited for them to come over by her and start reading. She was sitting on the dead petals to avoid the dirt.

The other two came over and started looking over the documents that they had. They had the map of the jungle with parts missing and the various indicators. Nothing new there.

Another smaller map of Carocol, plus a bit of the jungle outside which also included the river. It didn't really have any specific markers, just many many squares, circles and other odd shapes indicating where each building was, as well as other stuff like the walls and roads.

A few other outposts seemed to be scattered around, but they didn't seem to be in any locations of interest, or at least any from what the map tells, which wasn't much.

Everything else was simply blueprints for buildings and structures. Only really useful for getting an idea of what the insides of some buildings look like, or getting ideas for their own buildings, which seems like a long way off at the moment.