Survival Island

Griff was rather astonished when he saw Wisp's way of 'diving'. "Okay, I have seen some weird stuff in my life, but this is just something completely new." he said, hoping Wisp will understand his words underwater. "Here, it's this way." Griff said and swam towards the location of the sunken boat.

Unable to really understand Griff through the water, which garbled and distorted the spoken words, Wisp nodded despite the confused expression she wore. Opting to simply continue following Griff onward until the boat wreck came into view.

Griff sighed as he realized that speaking underwater doesn't really work and continued swimming towards the sunken ship. "Stupid, what were you thinking?" he thought to himself. When they arrived closer to the shipwreck, he turned towards Wisp and attempted to do the "Ta-daa" expression, looking incredibly silly while doing so, before swimming to one of the walls.

Wisp cocked her head funnily at Griff's 'ta-da' expression, not quite understanding what he was attempting to do. Shrugging it off with a smile, she proceeded on up to the ship. With a jump that while slower, sent her much higher than she normally would have been able to on normal ground, Wisp began wandering the deck of the submerged ship. On the open surface though, there wasn't much that had managed to stay on the ship when it went down. Other than rope, there didn't seem to be much, still that was enough for her to start trying to untangle the water logged tangles and knots.

Griff watched as Wisp experienced 'swimming' in sea and then landing on the deck, attempting to untie some worthless knots. Griff decided to swim inside the ship, searching for captain's cabin. Before entering, he looked at Wisp to see if she's gonna follow him inside.

Giving up on trying to get the waterlogged knots, Wisp saw Griff looking at her before swimming inside the ship. With little more than a nod, Wisp followed the transformed pony inside the ship to begin a hopefully more fruitful search. Inside the ship however seemed to not have fared much better.

Most papers were utterly destroyed as the front window seemed to have been broken at some point and water rushed inside. The resulting water rush had also seemed to have washed out a lot of the lighter supplies. A bright red box however floated against the roof, it's side displayed a white '+' sign.

Griff continued looking around, noticing a large map on one of the walls, or what's left of it. Most of the details were wiped by long exposure to salty water, but some parts of the map were still visible, showing some islands. The names, however, could not be read. Griff continued exploring into the ship, finding his way into the storage, filled with barrels and boxes.

Grabbing the box in her mouth, Wisp opted to followed after Griff. She looked curiously at the boxes and barrels but didn't have a clue on what they could carry or if whatever it was could be intact.

As they continued venturing further into the storage, it also got darker due to the lack of windows. The only light was coming from the hatches on the top deck. Griff slowed down a little and turned to Wisp, attempting to order her to stay back before gathering some momentum and ramming his big shark body into the rotten wall, breaking it easily and allowing some sunlight into the ship. He grinned at his idea to do so and then pried some crates open with his teeth, deciding to let Wisp look and check if it's worth taking before moving to the other crates and doing the same to them.

Wisp had to wonder what Griff was up to as he motioned for her to stay back, but once the light streamed in she 'oh'd in understanding before going to check out what the crates and barrels Griff had opened contained. The first crate seemed to have contained potatoes, but they were lumpy and distorted because of their lengthy submerge under the waters. Another crate holding carrots seemed to be in a similar situation as well as the other crates containing what used to be food. The first of the barrels however seemed to be empty. A couple more seemed to be the same, but one held a bunch of black rocks.

Griff interestingly looked at the bunch of the black rocks before taking one with his teeth and swimming out of the boat through the hole that he made and waited outside for Wisp to follow. He also motioned her to grab one of his fins to get to the beach faster.

Wisp scooped up a couple of the black rocks as well, and then grabbed onto Griff's fin. She would have said something but the bright red box was still in her mouth. Before he left though, Wisp spared the ship one last glance and wondered if there was still more to the wreck that laid hidden within it's confines. Either way that was for another time as for now Griff seemed ready to head back, and she had to admit that it'd be nice to see if this stuff was useful back on the surface.

Griff dashes off towards the shore, gaining momentum slow enough so Wisp doesn't lose her grip. Just before they reach the shore, Griff motions Wisp to let go and jumps out of the water as she does, transforming into unicorn form just before reaching the ground. He then waits until Wisp comes out of the water so they can start heading back to Dusk.

Wisp emerged soon enough, though a little more sluggishly. When she got back to their little campsite, she deposited the black rocks and the bright red box with the white '+' sign. "Griff, what are these rocks?" she asked holding the stone up for closer inspection.

Griff looked at the stone that he took and inspected it closely "Well I'm no expert for rocks, but this might be coal.. but then again, I could be horribly wrong." He said and tossed it at Dusk, the rock landing on the sand in front of him. "Whaddya think, Dusk? What could this possibly be?" he asked and then turned to the bright-red box. "Let's see what this is then.." he said and opened it.

Dusk had numerous thoughts going in his head when Griff and Wisp came back. When Griff tossed him the black stone he quickly identified it after examining it. "It's coal alright, but waterlogged coal. We could burn it when it's dry, but it won't do us any more good than burning wood. Now, if I had a forge, an anvil, a strong hammer, a melting pot, some molds, and all the other tools required for smelting and metal working, I could use it, if we ever found a deposit of iron ore we could mine, or tools we wouldn't mind melting down. Unfortunately, coal will be rather useless to us, from how I see it."

Dusk didn't like saying what they brought back was useless, especially since Wisp might be a bit hurt from that, but he wasn't going to lie about it.

True to notion, Wisp was a little upset about bringing back something that was graded as useless, but then she motioned towards the bright red box that Griff was opening. "What about that?" she asked pointing towards it. Inside were a few bandages, some disinfectant, a single flare, and a compass. "Is any of that stuff useful?"

"Bandages..flare, compass... This is a whole god damn treasure!" Griff says rather loudly in excitement. "This can save our lives for sure!" he added and took a good look at the compass, turning it. "Compass seems to work, bandages will be very useful if someone gets hurt, and flare... if we could make this somehow visible in the skies, that would get us spotted easily!" He continued, more-or-less talking to himself now.

"Indeed, this is a good find. I can add the disinfectant and bandages to my kit, unless we want more than one pony with a kit," Dusk said. He did wish that they found more things that would immediately be useful, but he'd have to make do.

Beaming with praise at the find of the kit, Wisp smiled brightly in the daylight. Going over towards Dusk then, she once more gave the pony a tight hug. The differences this time though was Wisp was a lot heavier, more solid from being water logged, and there would be a growing wetness spreading across Dusk's back. Water was steadily leaking out of the slight crack in her hooves, to which she was completely oblivious to. Pulling back from the embrace then, Wisp looked at both the other ponies. "So what do we do now?"

Dusk's first agenda was to figure out why Wisp was so heavy all of a sudden. The wet spot on his back indicated that Wisp was the one that got him a bit wet, although she was fairly dry. He soon noticed that the sand under Wisp's hoof was becoming wet.

"First, I want to take a look at your hoof there, if you don't mind," Dusk said. He wasn't confident enough to just take her hoof and get a close look at it.

Without hesitation, and a cautious nod that she didn't mind, Wisp extended her hoof out for Dusk to inspect. The hairline crack that had remained after Dusk had fixed the much larger spider webbed crack was still where it had been before and was now slightly leaking water that had managed to force it's way inside her mannequin body during her dive.

"It hasn't gotten worse has it?" she asked, the traces of fear edging their way into her tone.

Dusk then took her hoof with one of his own and held it closer to his eyes. Any awkward feelings he would have holding her hoof were absent, since he was focused on fixing the problem. It took him a bit to notice the thin cracks, and it was only thanks to water coming out of it that he noticed. He inwardly kicked himself for not noticing her hoof wasn't fully healed.

"It's not worse, but it seems you're rather... hollow. We should wait for the water to drain out before I fix it."

Dusk had no doubt Griff would find this to be a very odd statement.

Wisp nodded while looking at the thin crack herself as water continued to lightly stream out of the gap. Content to simply wait for the water to drain until doing anything else, Wisp simply laid down next to Dusk. There she could let the water drain away into the sand, and enjoy the warm sun which might actually help with the water draining process, though Wisp didn't know that last bit.

Either way, Wisp was very comfortable where she was. The warm sands felt comforting against her underside, the sun doing well enough to warm her back at the same time, and then with Dusk at her side. Wisp felt as warm as if she'd have stuck her hoof in fire when she didn't have this body. A content smile dawning upon her features as she relaxed more into the scene. "What all do we have to do today?" she asked again though looking up towards Dusk and then towards Griff.

"I honestly can't think of too much. Except for getting food and water, there's not much we need to do," Dusk said. He thought he could use this time to relax, and maybe with Wisp too. However, the fact he had practically done nothing today made him feel bad. But for the decision between spending time with Wisp and working, this was perhaps the first time he ever prioritized something over work.

"Although I admit I haven't done all that much today, a little relaxation time for all of us wouldn't hurt," he then said, getting himself so he was laying down beside Wisp. Seeing her smile and relax put a warm smile on his face.