Away and Afar

by PropsValroa

Chapter 78

Once the seaponies were told about and understood their task (and saw the money they were being offered) they got to work, gathering up planks of wood and other supplies to put the boat together.

It looked like they had enough money to pay all these workers for 2 days, which hopefully should be enough to put the boat together and drag it out into the waters. Since they still wouldn't have a sail, they'd need to anchor it to the shore to stop it from floating away.

The reason for the kelpi being there was revealed when, as the others worked, they were splashed with streams of water to keep them nice and wet. The water flowing through the air from magical currents. A most effective means to stop the seaponies from having to drop what they're doing and dip back into the water repeatedly.

Collapse would join them in their work if they accepted it. She didn't entirely know what to do, so had to occasionally ask for a few pointers in what she was doing. She followed their instructions and motions to the letter - merely being an extra worker in the bunch. An extra worker would hopefully shorten the construction process of the ship.

The others were free to join if they wanted, but Collapse wanted to make it clear that she appreciated what they were doing for them. Collapse wasn't just gonna sit and wait for it to be done.

Considering the fact that the group currently had the seaponies under their employment, none of them refused Collapse's attempts to work alongside them, and readily gave any advice that she requested.

Magloria and Jump Start had also joined in, as there was no point in waiting around doing nothing. They all would occasionally get splashed by water from the kelpi, but there wasn't really anything they could do about that without hindering the other workers.

Hours of building passed, with everyone occasionally taking breaks, either from exhaustion or accidental injuries due to the unfamiliar location. By the time it was dusk, most of the ship was built and the workers readily accepted half of their pay as they got ready to leave for the ocean.

Collapse continued with the work, occasionally having small talk with the seaponies working alongside them. She at least wanted to get to know their names or some small things about their interests. Nothing too invasive, as they soon were going to be departing this area hopefully anyway. Collapse didn't complain or speak about the occasional water splashes.

By the time they had completed for the day she would step back to look at the ship to see how much of it was built. Hopefully tomorrow they could finish it off, get the sails, and then finally depart.

Collapse did get small details here and there from them, even when she didn't ask for it. They weren't ones to work silently, so there was an occasional conversation that she was able to listen to, including them calling each other by name.

None of which was worth writing down or remembering, because they wouldn't be met ever again unless they for some reason had another construction related issue and so happened to get exactly the same worker crew, which was unlikely.

The boat was going along well enough. If they had some form of wood polish or paint, they could make it look much better, but they didn't, and it wouldn't be worth going and getting anyway.

"I hope no one else finds this and claims it as their own. That would be a really big problem." Jump Start said as the seaponies started leaving. She turned to the jungle and began to return home, as they didn't have much else to do here with night approaching.

When the day finished up, she got ready to return home and then an idea crossed her mind. "Then perhaps one of us should stay here to make sure that doesn't happen. Or better yet, we can camp out here tonight. I don't want to see this ending up stolen with the work and time we've put into it." Collapse sighed, wondering what the others thought.

As the seaponies left, she would wave them and wish them well, while thanking them for the effort they have put into it. Tomorrow was the day Collapse wanted to finish this boat off of with, it was time for them to leave. Enough mistakes and near death experiences have been had, in this unfamiliar land.

Magloria, being the voice of reason, decided to speak up. "I doubt there would be many creatures, even intelligent ones, who would want to take away a bunch of wood. The most valuable things we have here are the other non-wooden stuff." she said, nodding at their nails, adhesive, sealant and such.

"And don't forget, you would be sleeping here without a proper roof over your head *and* on a beach which has been soaked by ocean water. All the wood is wet too so you can't sleep inside the ship either."

She then paused before reaching into her saddlebag. "And speaking of other things..."

The prismal stone was brought forth, now back together in one piece and, if they squinted, glowing slightly brighter than before. You could barely make out the line where the crack was from a distance. "Almost good as new." Magloria said proudly.

Collapse smiled at Magloria's prismal stone. It was fixed! "Heh, you sure had better ideas for that then I did. Sure, let's take a sleep in our shelter tonight. I don't think Stanton will have much else to do for us, but at least he managed to help us out a bit after all." Collapse said, and would proceed along back to the shelter, winking at Magloria. "I really do wonder what that stone can actually do, what it is meant for." she added.

Magloria put away the prismal stone as they started heading back. "We do already know that it was used for 1 thing, as some sort of power source or catalyst. There would no doubt be many other similar uses that it could have, such as powering a city-wide shield for months." she said.

When they arrived back at the shelter, Stanton was already there for some reason. His said he wouldn't be returning for a bit, so why was he here?

Collapse agreed with Magloria's assessment. Hopefully this stone would be of great interest when they return to Equestria. She hoped that there could potentially be some sort of innovation to be gained from their discoveries. She wondered what would happen if a proper exploration team (like they were originally intended to be) arrived, and opened up relations with the Seaponies and Panthins in official capacity. But that was likely years away, with how disastrous their mission ended up. It's possible that the higher ups back home may not even be inclined to send anyone out here for a very long time due to the disaster that befell them.

Looking to Stanton, Collapse would greet him. "Hello, what brings you here?" she would ask him curious once they arrived.

Stanton looked away from the group. He seemed to be uncertain about something. "Well I wasn't going to come back so soon... but things have changed for you." he said.

Magloria took a step forward, not liking the sound of this. "What changed?" she asked, seriousness in her voice.

"I don't think you have time to waste, because they're sending out scouting parties to look for you, and once they find you they'll bring you back. They don't know that you live here, but it's only a matter of time before they come across this place." he responded.

Collapse sighed, and her eyes took a serious gaze. "Well, that is to be expected. We have just one more day, roughly of construction to do. I think it's best that we get what we can from this area here, and leave." Collapse said to Magloria. "We must make haste, we can't simply sleep here. If they see us, we are going to have to fight them off, and they will know where we are, so I would rather go somewhere further away to where they have less of a chance of spotting us." she stated.

If Magloria and Jump Start agreed, she would start gathering up important things of value. It was best to also take the machines with them, because if the Panthins see the machines they will know exactly who took them. She would not likely be taking them with her on the ship, and just leave them on the beach due to how heavy they are and how much space they take up.

"W-what? You want us to leave for somewhere else at night? But what if some predator or other nasty creature finds us?" Jump Start worried.

Magloria sighed as she began packing up whatever they could carry with them. They'd have to leave behind the heavy machines, as unsummoning them would create bright flashes of light that could attract attention.

"We might have something find us even if we *don't* move. At least the wild creatures don't bring crossbows and backup." she stated, "This is going to make building the rest of the boat an absolute pain however, as we're likely going to have more travel time to get back."

Collapse also would pack up what else they could carry with them, putting the rest of their materials in the bags. "I would rather us fend off a nasty predator rather than something dedicated to enslaving us and shooting at us for something we didn't originally want to do. That is what they don't understand, and I am betting that no matter how much we could try to talk - they won't understand." her eyes narrowed.

"Leave the machines here, make them think we are coming back to this area when we are not. Unsummoning those would actually create more trouble than it's worth, I'd rather have my magic dedicated to defending ourselves rather than holding them in my Pocket Dimension, on more *rational thoughts...*" she decided.

When they had everything packed, she was ready to go. "Let's go, Preferably we can camp somewhere near to the boat itself, but if we do that it's likely they'll be able to track us down because of the path we cleared..."

"It's a good thing that you're not back in Carocol on proper trial." Stanton said as he jumped in on the conversation. "Saying that 'they don't understand why you did something' would get you sent to prison faster than a bolt of lightning. You'd be outright telling them you're guilty."

As the group moved to the edge of the clearing in preparation for leaving, Stanton instead moved over to where the river was. "You're not coming?" Jump Start asked, "You might not be able to find us later."

"I don't need to. I just need to go back to the ship you're building." He shrugged, then started to walk away through the bushes.

"You should probably come with us, Stanton. If they see you anywhere they will get suspicious, and besides there is nothing to work on with the ship. We have to wait until morning for that, so we and the Seaponies can finish our construction of the ship." Collapse said to Stanton, inwardly feeling suspicious about him still. Collapse was ready to leave. This place here was a good place for what it was, she won't really miss it though. It provided them what they needed, that was all.

Stanton shook his head. "It would be much better if they didn't see me with you. They would get even more suspicious. Besides, I plan to just rest so I can wake up when you do." he said before taking off, going out of sight.

"Bah, leave him Collapse. It means we only have to keep track of 3 instead of 4 during the night, or get him fish in the morning." Magloria stated as she led the retreat from their shelter.

Collapse agreed with Magloria and didn't object to this action and retreated along with her. She kept alert just incase they happened to come across anything dangerous. At the very least she was glad they decided not to sleep there tonight.

~~With Collapse being so alert she quickly spotted another giant python within the trees, but this didn't stop it from lashing out and immediately snaring them. She tried to cast her magic, but this one's scales seem to cause the magic to glance off. She couldn't do anything as she blacked out.

When she awoke, she found herself still within the coils, but at this point they had relaxed slightly. When the python noticed she had awoken it reached over to a pile of fruit and fed her.

Days past as she was kept as some sort of pet, unable to escape from the python's grasp. At least she wasn't dead, and maybe Magloria and Jump Start would be able to rescue her eventually.~~

The traveled through the dark jungle for several hours, just creating enough distance between them and Carocol to minimize the chances that they would be found. If they moved far enough away, maybe they wouldn't bother searching at that distance and would turn around instead.

This didn't make the night ambience any better though. Annoying bugs still flew around them, and the different animal calls that they hadn't familiarized themselves with yet constantly came at them from different directions.

Eventually they found a suitable cave that they could use to take shelter in. They almost missed it due to the thick layer of plants in the way. It seemed to be largely uninhabited as well, if the lack of bones was any indication.

"Wait, do you hear that?" Magloria asked as she looked around, ears perked. All Collapse heard was the buzzing of bugs.

Collapse walked along relatively silently through the dark jungle. She would be lying if she said she wasn't a bit nervous about what they may find, but as time grew on she grew glad that they had managed to put more distance between Carocol and them as they continued their journey. The different animal calls made her wonder what was making those sounds. Part of her didn't want to find out.

Upon arriving at the cave, she was glad there wasn't any bones or any obvious signs of habitation. That will have to do for now. Upon hearing what Magloria said, her ears perked up in nervousness. "Hear what? I don't hear anything out of the ordinary." Collapse spoke to Magloria.

"That's because it's silent. Too silent." Magloria said as she looked around the trees around them. Wind started to blow around them, making it harder to hear anything nearby.

Jump Start spoke up. "Then why are we just standing around? Let's go into the cave quickly before something-" she stopped when her eyes fell on something, shrinking to pinpricks in fear as her ears folded back.

Collapse got ready to fight just incase. She hadn't seen what Jump Start saw, and went silent. Collapse did her best to keep calm but was quite worried at what they had come across. Another huge python? Some other creature, perhaps?

Jump Start turned and ran for the cave. The moment she did that something leapt out of the bushes where she was previously looking at. Something big, black, furry and suspiciously Panthin-looking.

Only they didn't seem like the others. They seemed wilder if the lack of intelligent spark in their yellow eyes was any indication, and if their bigger size made them appear much stronger.

There was no equipment on them, and they didn't talk either. Just an immediate pounce at Collapse, razor sharp claws extended and ready to tear her to pieces.

Collapse reacted instinctively by taking her crystal spear in hold, then attempted to stab the feral Panthin squarely in the chest. If her spear landed true, she'd attempt to force it deeper with a *twist.* Her heart rate rose dramatically, as well as her adrenaline. She had no time to contemplate. Only self defense was on her mind, and for good reason.

Collapse didn't have enough time to bring the spear into position for a straight blow through the chest, which definitely would've killed the beast with its lunge assisting the attack.

Instead she managed to nick it along the side of its chest, piercing deeply through the skin with the panthin's ribcage preventing it from hitting anything important.

This however did not stop 2 sets of claws from painfully sinking into her sides, nor the face of the beast being so close to her own, its horrible breath reaching her as it let out a growl in pain. Her spear thankfully kept it from crossing the last little distance and reaching her neck.

Magloria readied an attack with her own shortsword and swung as the creature, but whether it was due to the pain of the spear or seeing Magloria's approach, the panthin backed away, yanking the spear out of Collapse's grip and avoiding Magloria's counterattack as it did so.

Now the panthin began to circle them, growling occasionally as it seemed to consider whether the two meals in front of it was even worth it anymore.

Collapse let out out a growl in pain, having felt those claws sink into her sides. She can deal with that later as they have first aid. She was more than thankful for what Magloria did, though. This creature to her was absolutely disgusting, it was everything a Panthin was that was undesirable. Attacking them suddenly, and along with it's feral look and horrible smells - it was definitely a beast that she wouldn't feel guilty for slaying.

With her spear out of grasp, Collapse would pull out her axe. As the Panthin circled around them, she would stand still while bleeding from her sides. She was gauging when would be a good opportunity to strike with her axe. Perhaps she could have used her magic, but that could possibly attract attention with the lightshow it would cause.

Suddenly she'd motion to Magloria, signaling her to attack. Collapse would swing at the panthin savagely, with the intention to cause as much damage as possible to the beast. Aiming for it's face and neck. If Collapse missed, then perhaps Magloria would have landed a strike. A two pronged attack. Collapse was struggling from the pain caused by the panthin's claws, and was occasionally grunting in pain.

Magloria brought her shortsword to bare again, and when Collapse gave the signal, she thrust it out towards the panthin in precise, sweeping arcs.

But both of their attacks couldn't hit, for each time they tried to land a blow the panthin had backed off even further, growling louder and louder each time. Neither Magloria nor Collapse could get an angle where it was trapped between their attacks, as it just kept retreating each time.

It finally reached the decision that these two things were not worth the trouble of hunting, and in Magloria's last attempt to hit it with a forward thrust, it turned and ran off, only receiving a light nick to their flank as they left.

Magloria lowered her blade slightly as she kept an eye on the jungle ahead. "Well at least it wasn't stupid, starving or insane." she sighed.