With the changeling throne being vastly oversized for someone like Chrysalis, even the presence of roughly twenty drones doesn’t prevent her from getting a good night’s sleep. Strangely enough, despite them being terraced all over her, it could easily be considered the best sleep in years, which makes her curious the instant she wakes up without showing a single mark of being up yet. Physical status - vital and strong. Mental status - ready and aware. Energy level - significantly higher than last night?
This makes her open her eyes and see a strange mix of dim colors that can’t be anything other than drones sprawled all over her face, somehow entangled in a way that lets her count five colors in total. However, there shouldn’t be any colors. There should only be grey and black drones, at best with bright teal eyes, unless some length of the tangled limbs in front of her face belongs to 387, unwisely within biting range. Attempting to see the situation from a different angle, she checks the nearby hive links, only to sense that none of the drones are awake yet, so she just squints.
Hmmm… It’s been a while since I’ve seen this.
The drones directly surrounding her are partially transformed into that revolting glitterbug form and are somehow softly radiating love. However, a brief status check on them reveals that they’re not losing love, quite the opposite, in fact. So far, only Three has been able to remain fully in this form, mimicking the effect of the Crystal Heart, but that strange drone’s physiology is nowhere close to that of hive drones anymore.
Having a way for drones to somehow feed themselves or at least lower their love consumption would be the most critical development for the hive in centuries.
Chrysalis checks the drones’ vitals, mental states, what their brains are currently chewing through, as well as their recent history, and comes up with nothing. The only truly common denominator is that they’re all here, on the throne, peacefully sleeping while piled on her. They’re not fully transformed, some are producing more love than others without any correlation to the degree of their transformation, but all of them are doing it, be they on the throne or piled up under it. Them being grouped up seems to be the critical part, but from digging deeper into their heads, one by one, she concludes that this can’t be it because the phenomenon simply doesn’t happen down in their cavern, or not to a discernible degree.
Do I just use it as a one-time gift and leave it be? What an absolute waste, but it seems like I don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s clearly completely unconscious, so openly experimenting with them is unlikely to yield results.
Admitting defeat, Chrysalis lets out an annoyed huff. Glowing teal eyes open in response, blink, and Chrysalis senses a wave of awakening drones. With it, all the partial transformations simply fade without any green fire or seemingly the drones’ knowledge.
“Alright, wake up and stop choking your Queen,” Chrysalis grumbles, sits up, grabs a clump of too slowly waking up drones about to drop from the throne, and shoves them aside to its less crowded part, “And get off of my throne unless you want to fight me for leadership.”
She yawns loudly, taking care to show all the terrifying sharp teeth inside her mouth, which has the desired effect of making all the remaining drones fly off and regroup down on the floor where they start looking around, unsure how to proceed. Moments later, the surface levels of the hive mind start ringing with related questions, making Chrysalis filter those out. She doesn’t need to listen to some variation of “Hey, it’s worky time but we’re not supposed to work right now. Wat do?” on repeat. Instead, she watches as 65536 peels itself off of one of many drone piles scattered around, yawns, rubs its eyes, and finally realizes where it is and what it’s supposed to do right now.
“Good morning, everyone!” 65536’s loud voice makes all drones look at it. Some wave, some just yawn back, some look around as if wondering where they are, “Don’t panic about having no map markers today. I asked the Queen to give you a full day off and she agreed - that means we’ll be having one long breaky time and probably a longer sleepy time, because I’m sure you’ll be exhausted. However, before we begin I need two things. Number one - I need a couple volunteers to dig several shafts from the surface all the way down to the High Score cavern, plus a few more to build a chimney here in the throne room.”
“Wait, what?” asks Chrysalis, her voice silencing everyone instantly.
“As we were designing the shafts last night, I was thinking,” 65536 looks up at her with a smile, “Now that you can mine coal there’s no reason to keep scrounging up sticks here and there and, since we’ll be doing the same thing for the drones, why not build a proper hearth here in the throne room? The only difference is that we’ll need stone bricks so that the new controllable goopy walls don’t accidentally catch fire,” it shrugs in the end, “I cleared it with 156 and 387, but it’s up to you, of course.”
“Show me the design,” she says, and 65536 immediately mentally transmits the blueprint. It’s beyond simple - basically just a stone chimney by the wall to the bottom of which they’ll move the makeshift oven. Drone ability to smooth solid stone better than any pony implement gets rid of any need for mortar or explosive goop to keep the stones together, because gravity will do all the work with how tall the chimney will be to reach the roof, “I see no problem with the proposed addition to the throne room,” Chrysalis nods and checks the rest of the plans, “As for the other requests…”
There’s one major vent for 99856’s testing area - likely the most necessary one, since Chrysalis did see first-hoof the proof of the drone’s nose literally melting from the inside. A smaller one just for extra air flow for its laboratory too - not critical but its size doesn’t compromise security.
The second major one is for 99111’s workshop - if the hive begins smelting iron, it will be necessary for a furnace. Chrysalis briefly ponders it before making a change to the blueprint. Drones will dig out a new room which will serve as a smithy. That way, 99856’s two rooms will be analogic to 99111’s.
The third change - a major shaft will be added to the High Score Cavern to serve as a fireplace similar to the one 65536 designed for the throne room.
Finally, there’s one more new hole of drone size leading straight up from the HSC that’s marked as “surprise”. A way to the surface? The last thing the hive needs are drones running around the Badlands when bored without any way of tracking who goes in and out.
“65536, what’s that last shaft about?” she links up with 65536 and 387.
“It’s a surprise. I even wrote it there so you wouldn’t think I tried to add something without you knowing. You’ll like it,” replies 65536 cheerfully.
“387, you said I could trust you with the security of this whole ‘project’. A direct, unprotected access point like this is far from secure. What’s that all about?” she turns her attention to the warrior.
“I assure you I wasn’t too happy about it either, but there’s no way to do it differently right now. However, I’m already working on a followup project for 99111 and 99856 to shore up that weakness,” replies 387 in a completely official tone that always drives Chrysalis nuts because it heralds something not technically wrong but that would annoy her at best.
“But what is it for?” she presses him.
“Oh that? That’s a surprise,” 387 replies with a smile that makes Chrysalis’ eye twitch, “You’ll like it.”
She rolls her eyes and waves her fetlock dismissively, enjoying the brief moment of surprise in 387’s face. He was clearly expecting further pushback, possibly even outright denial of the project.
Two holes-damned clowns and I can’t read the mind of either of them.
Paranoia or not, 65536 has been a net benefit for the hive to such a degree that it warrants some… leeway. As much as she hates to admit it, that’s true even more for 387. It’s also clear that, as usual, 387 is doing all this to screw with her. 65536, however, isn’t, and if it believes this to be a good idea, it’s the one drone smart and experienced enough to gauge the consequences.
“Fine, go for it. I’ll judge the benefits for myself later,” she gives the permission in the real world as well, “Acceptable.”
“Thank you!” 65536 beams and looks back down at the drones surrounding it, “So, as I was saying - I’m going to need some volunteers who can dig the shafts and get some rocks for the chimney. You’ll lose out on today’s special activity but I’ll find a way to make it up to you, maybe with extra noms or something. If you’re interested, raise a hoof.”
Every single drone raises a hoof.
“Huh…” 65536 scratches its head, “Safe digging and extra noms. I should have expected that.”
“You know,” 99111 speaks out first, its extra grabby arm raised instead of a foreleg, “Since most of the digging will be done for our work, it’s only fair that 99856 and I are the ones to do it, no extra noms needed.”
“That idea crossed my mind,” 65536 nods, “but I think you two specifically could use some time outside because you might learn something that will eventually be useful for all drones.”
“Hey, yeah!” some drone agrees enthusiastically, “If this gets us more neat goop thingies, I’m all for 65536’s idea. Any drone with access to so many noms gots to know its stuff!”
“Oookay, I think we’ll only need ten drones at most and there’s about a hundred of us here. So, while we’re figuring this out we should scout if my plan is even possible to do in its entirety. I need someone to quickly run down to the High Score Cavern and see if the fire’s gone and how the smoke situation’s going.”
This time, everyone’s eyes lock on three drones in particular who exchange glances.
“Yay?” asks 99971 meekly.
“Super yay!” 99066 beams and hoof bumps 99012.
“99, go with them and give me a full status report,” Chrysalis interrupts 65536’s planning.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” 99 stands up from a Scufflestick game happening only on the hive mind overlay of the real world. The drone she’s been playing against curiously pokes the glowing figures invisible in the real world and wibbles when they fail to react to its touch and the entire board vanishes in the next moment, “Let’s call it a draw,” she whispers to the drone.
“Eeee, I got a draw against a high rank!” the wibbler immediately cheers up and starts visibly bouncing up and down, “I am the best Scufflesticky.”
The quicktrotters gather around 99. Despite 65536 seemingly being in charge of today’s activities, the presence of a high rank trumps everything, especially once 65536 gets swarmed by other drones trying to figure out who gets to dig the vents.
“Let’s go, you three. We have a mission to accomplish,” says 99 and leads the trio out of the throne room.
***
99 catches the quicktrotters glancing at her over and over while they’re walking down the tunnels. She can sense them talking through their hive links, and she could easily read what’s on the drones’ minds but in the spirit of practice she tries to analyze their body language instead. Their looks don’t feel hostile or worried to her, rather… eager to ask something but not sure how to approach the subject.
“Is anything wrong?” she asks, coming to the conclusion after ten minutes that if she doesn’t act first this might go on for their entire trip.
“You talked about it with her already,” whispers 99066 and nudges 99012.
“No, no no no,” 99012 shakes its head, “Umm, maybe. But not really!” it adds quickly.
“Is it about your quicktrotting thing?” 99 recalls her only major interaction with 99012.
“Mhm,” 99012 nods. 99 glances at the other two walking along who catch her looking and start quickly nodding.
“Well? I’m listening,” she fails to suppress a puzzled smirk. There’s no reason for the trio to be so worried around her.
“You see, whenever the three of us have the same destination, we go for a friendly trot - no love enhancements, just routing practice,” explains 99012, “Would you like to trot with us now? We still have a few levels to go before we reach home.”
99 smiles. Quicktrotters or not, there’s no world where a drone would outrun her, and she could use the morning stretch after lying on the cold floor of the throne room, playing Scufflestick.
“Sure, you lead the way and I’ll keep up,” she shrugs.
“Alrighty, everyone,” 99012 finds itself in familiar territory, “Let’s do the usual - I go first, five-count breaks,” It looks at 99, “That means we go in the order of rank and whoever goes next counts to five before they start running. Uhhhh… you don’t mind going last just this once, right?”
“Don’t worry about it,” 99 shakes her head.
Half a minute later, their hoofsteps are echoing loudly through the upper tunnels which are otherwise uncharacteristically silent due to the absence of all other drones. While the drones are fast –even though they’re not going at full speed according to themselves– 99’s expectation proves correct - as long as they’re inside a tunnel into which she can comfortably fit, she can easily keep up the pace with only a slightly elevated heart rate. On the more impressive hole, however, when they finally approach the HSC entrance the three drones are taking it just as well as she is.
They might not be particularly quick or strong, but they sure do have the endurance.
When 99 finally stops side by side with 99971 whose five seconds of head start she easily cleared during the run, the drones share their times:
“Three, twenty-five!” reports 99012
“Three, twenty-two,” 99066 beams.
“Three, twenty-seven,” says 99971, dead last but visibly pleased with itself.
“Same,” 99 adds her two bits, “You guys are pretty quick for drones. I might transform into a drone to even things out and run along with you sometime. 387 has been pestering me about my physical shape far too much recently,” she measures 99066, “Speaking of fitness, you don’t look so much faster than 99971. Five-second difference is a lot.”
“I’m not!” says 99066 triumphantly, “I’ve got a couple routing tricks up my leg holes. Quicktrotting is not as much about being fast as it’s about knowing where to step, when to keep your speed and when to slow down to not trip yourself. It’s more about your thinky ball,” it taps its head.
“Interesting,” 99 rubs her chin, “You know what? Once we’re finished here I’d like to learn more but the mission comes first,” her expression turns serious, and all three drones vigorously nod.
“Stuff still smells smokey,” 99971 sniffs the air.
“There’s all this new black dust on the floor,” 99066 experimentally kicks the layer of soot.
“Yeah, it still smells, but not as much and it’s not hot anymore,” says 99012, sticks its head into the crack serving as the HSC entrance, and they hear it sniff before it loudly calls out, “GOOP FRIEND, YOU’RE OKAY!”
“EEEEEE!” 99066 bolts after 99012 who disappears into the High Score Cavern.
“GASP! WE FORGOT TO TAKE IT WITH US!” 99971 follows.
99 has to shapeshift to fit through the drone-sized hole, and once she’s inside she sees all three quicktrotters surrounding some kind of a green, dome-shaped slime blob the size of a drone head. With this being a truly new dip into the unknown, 99 doesn’t risk anything and skims the drone’s minds, quickly revealing memories of 99066’s fall and the seemingly harmless nature of the slime. While she finds it difficult to believe that an underground creature would be as non-threatening as the drones think, it is quite possible that whatever the slime subsists on might be evolutionarily far enough from changelings. Considering that there’s an unbroken line clear of the soot, which otherwise forms a layer on everything else, ending at the slime’s position, her best guess is that the slime might be eating coal residue.
That would explain 99066 discovering it under a coal deposit. I wish a real chemist was here to examine this thing.
“Hmm, a slime,” she pokes its outer membrane. It jiggles without any reaction so she examines her hoof. There’s no residue of the contact, “It doesn’t seem acidic, which makes me wonder how it eats the material,” she nods to the cleared line the width of the slime’s bottom diameter when the quicktrotters give her quizzical looks, “Perhaps it emits some kind of vapor?” 99 reinforces her nasal passages and sniffs the air close to the slime.
Huh, the air around the thing certainly smells different. Cleaner. Downsides, 99, think of potential downsides!
No idea. It’s not aggressive, it doesn’t melt chitin, it seemingly even cleans the air. MAYBE if some drone ingested it there could be consequences, but right now I think it could only be dangerous to property, and even then only if SOME drone picked up SOMETHING this thing eats in a tunnel and SOMEHOW left it in its way for long enough so that the slime could wobble towards it.
99 shakes her head. She doesn’t know enough and there isn’t anyone around who does, so she focuses on the cavern itself. As noticed before, soot’s everywhere, meaning that 99856 must have gone overboard with the amount of coal it tried to burn. While using so much is stupid in hindsight, its only previous experience can’t have been more extensive than using a couple sticks and dried plants 57999 might have brought from the greenhouse, or maybe some accidentally flammable resin. To 99’s eyes, it quickly becomes clear that with the exception of the mess, the drone cavern is just fine. Of course, it’s bound to require some structural integrity assessment in case the fire damaged the rocks somehow, but drones can do that way better with just a few taps of a hoof so she leaves that to 10k for later. In light of that, she heads through the dissolved door in the back leading to 99111 and 99856’s workspaces.
99856’s testing area is just black. The soot layer on the floor is nearly a hoof thick, and all the walls as well as the ceiling are heavily stained, although a simple swipe of a hoof reveals that it will be easy to clean. The other three rooms are bricked off by thin, rectangular rocks which she removes only enough to sneak a clear look inside. Whoever blocked the passages to stop the smoke from getting in did an excellent job, and neither the workshop, the laboratory, nor the new coal storage are affected beyond a small semi-circle of black dust behind the barricade. Reassured that for how much mess the fire caused it did inversely as much damage, 99 returns to the HSC itself.
The slime has moved roughly half a pony length, eagerly followed by the quicktrotters. When they notice her walking back, 99971 nudges 99012 who shakes its head and nudges it back. Visibly nervous, 99971 picks the slime up, turns it around, and points it towards 99. There are two dots and a curved line drawn on it in soot, forming a happy face.
“Umm, 99, we kinda thought you looked a bit… sad, and you said our goop friend is called a slime, so we turned it around and… now it’s a smile,” explains 99971 unprompted, and takes a step back as 99 approaches.
She has no idea how to respond. The whole development is unrelated to anything but also so quintessentially… drone-like. One breath which feels like an eternity later, she settles on:
“Thanks. I’ve had a lot on my mind recently.”
“Ohhh, I know that feeling,” 99066 nods, “Quicktrotting helps! The only thing you can think of is the route.”
“Or digging,” 99971 adds, sits down, and starts paddling its forelegs in front of it, “Once you start, you just keep going until the map says you’re done. There’s nothing in your head other than 99380’s tunes, and only if you want those.”
“Maybe that’s why 10k is so worried all the time,” 99012 rubs its chin, “Remember when we found it passed out in the coal tunnel? Its forelegs were all… crunchy- crunchier than usual.”
The comment makes some puzzle pieces lying around inside 99’s head click together, especially those left over from yesterday’s conversation with 10k.
10k’s problem isn’t just crushing responsibility. I thought it was metaphorical, but it literally can’t be the drone it’s supposed to be. For them, it’s not a job, it’s an identity.
The realization only leaves 99 with even less helpful advice she could offer.
“Now you’re looking even sadder…” mumbles 99971.
99 takes a deep breath and forces a smile.
“Sorry, I was thinking about something important that I didn’t handle well,” she pats the heads of the three drones one by one, “Your idea was good, and the slim- smile is cute,” she looks at the blob that’s back on the floor, clearing out the area underneath it as the soot lines are slowly disappearing, “In fact, if it’s not dangerous, could you bring more of them over here? It would make cleaning up a lot easier,” she points at the soot-less line.
“CAN TOTALLY DO THAT!” 99066 nods vigorously before glancing at the other two, “It’s not dangerous, just stay clear of the wet walls or you’ll get stuck until you dry up like I did.”
“Lead the way,” says 99012.
“Count to five?” asks 99971.
Fifteen seconds later, 99 can only hear the echoes of the last set of rapidly disappearing hoofsteps. Experimentally, she reaches over to the slime and leaves her hoof on its top. It doesn’t react at all.
“It doesn’t seem to be intelligent in any way,” she raises her hoof after a while and observes her now clean underhoof, “Unless it starts multiplying or the extras they bring somehow coagulate together into a slime monster, they’ll have something to clean all the mess left over from mining and freshen up the air a bit,” she walks over to the access crack, shrinks, walks through, and concentrates on her hive link.
She easily reaches the Queen.
“Mission accomplished, Your Majesty. The fire is out, but it’s still hard to breathe. Despite that, it seems to me it’s safe to start digging the new shafts. The only exception is the testing area itself where there might be some structural integrity issue, but I can’t assess that. The drones found some kind of a coal-eating slime that seems harmless but can slowly clear all the soot caused by the fire, so I sent 99012, 99066, and 99971 for more. The place should be okay by the time the drones are scheduled to go to sleep today.”
“Understood. I’ll boot them out immediately. Playing fetch is getting boring, although it’s fun to watch them bounce off of each other as they rush for the ball. No matter what 387 says about potential brain damage,” replies Chrysalis and cuts the communication.
With nothing more to do, 99 sits down by the crack and waits for the quicktrotters.
*Clip clop.*
Her brain immediately fires on all cylinders. Those are not drone hoofsteps.
Did I drift off?!
She looks both ways and spots 415 approaching, tailed by a female warrior by the rank 966.
I should have noticed them way before I heard them.
“Just the changeling I wanted to see,” opens 415 with a smirk, “Did I miss a rebellion or is there a reason why there are no drones working today? With how things have been moving in their favor, one can’t be sure of anything these days.”
Despite how much 99 wants to quickly scramble to her hooves, she retains the self-control to move slowly and deliberately as if her rank really was at least close to what a top 100 changeling should be.
“Due to 65536’s visit, the Queen agreed that the drones can have a day off,” she replies. Catching a small crack in 415’s confident expression at the mention of the visitor.
“That seems unwise. I wonder what hive-supporting operations we will have to cancel due to ensuing resource limitations,” comments 415.
“As far as I know, none. The reports show a surplus in everything the infiltrators on missions need, and we can’t scale up operations due to heavy winter anyway. Don’t worry, everything points to a short time off being risk-free at worst and downright beneficial at best,” 99 retorts.
“Does it?” 415 narrows his eyes, “You are not at all bothered by their mind control resistance and militarization? Today they want a day off, tomorrow they take it with fire and acid.”
“The Queen is taking the drones’ sudden progress into consideration, and has sent me to oversee their weapons research… once they get to it,” 99 replies in a neutral tone. Some instinct is screaming at her that she isn’t safe in this situation, although her life so far has been violence-free.
“A good choice, maybe,” 415 looks into 99’s eyes, “Tell me, what should a Queen do if, entirely hypothetically, drones killed a ranked changeling? No accident, just a high rank catching some drones doing something they weren’t allowed to, and the drones somehow killed that high rank to avoid being reported.”
99 skims the top of 415's mind as lightly as she can and she quickly learns that she’s definitely not skilled enough to dig into him on the spot without him noticing. On the other hole, she does feel confident about it being true the other way around too, especially since 387 has been teaching her some basic mental tricks from his personal bag of surprises, and those have supposedly protected him from Chrysalis and everyone before her for ages.
“I’d say that exile would be the starting point and everything else would depend on the details,” she replies, hiding her curiosity and keeping her voice thoughtful as if only toying with a hypothetical scenario, “Is there a point you’re getting to or are you for some unbelievable reason scared of drones?” she adds an incredulous chuckle to the question. This is a game, and if 415 thinks he’s the only one who is playing she can catch him off-guard.
“Exile does sound like a good starting point,” he ignores her remark, “Which means you’re already thinking clearer than our current ruler. In light of that, I have one more question - do you know that a classless changeling is nonsense?” he laughs as he notices 99 blink, “Oh I know what you are better than you do, 99. New Queens exist to gain power and fight for leadership, either winning the hive or feeding the original Queen an amount of refined energy she can’t get anywhere else. You’re not Chrysalis’ first daughter I outlived, and the last one got torn to shreds by top ranks, screaming for help while Chrysalis left her to die for being weak. If you choose the quick way out, ask Chrysalis directly what happened to her previous direct descendant. If, however, you want to have a fighting chance, figure out what happened to 745 without her finding out. Maybe then you’ll understand whom Chrysalis really values.”
“You do realize that if I ask her and she kills me, you’re next, right?” 99 raises an eyebrow.
415 chuckles.
“Let’s say I trust your judgement,” he turns around and walks away.
99 immediately starts replaying the conversation in her head.
I really, really, REALLY should tell the Queen immediately. On the other hole, it’s not as if I can’t ask a few questions here and there. He must have a failsafe in case I just ask Chrysalis, right? He wouldn’t be bluffing…
She takes a deep breath.
Okay, so let’s entertain the hypothetical scenario. If it’s about power, it’s bound to be a long-term plan. Eating me would be pointless as I am now. Holes, she might do better by eating one of the main gate sentries. This could all even be just a test from Chrysalis, holes know it wouldn’t be the first one.
Faced with this web of assumptions and guesses, 99 cracks an uncharacteristically evil smile.
Once you stop trembling, this gets FUN.