Day 8 - Smiley's hole: 2/7
65536 enters the apartment where it and Blueblood reside. Technically, either of them can use the water bungalow for the royal guests, but Blueblood was against using the ‘more comfortable option’ for himself when they were introduced to this place and, after what just happened, 65536 decided that being closer to the drones would be a good idea.
The drone lets out a sigh of relief when it finds Blueblood lying on the floor, alive and well, next to Smiley who is occupied with its drawing tablet. One wide motion of Smiley’s foreleg later, Blueblood sighs:
“Let’s not attempt cursive. Your best bet is to be as clear as possible. Short and snappy.”
Whether Smiley understands any of what he said is a mystery, but it starts wiping its slate nonetheless. Hearing the door close, Blueblood sits up and asks 65536:
“What was all that about?”
65536 walks past, sits down on the bed, and in a heavy voice recapitulates the entire past half an hour to Blueblood. Strangely enough, while Smiley stops playing with its tablet and listens as well, it doesn’t seem worried nor does its hive link generate the expected sequence of puzzled or worried faces, leading 65536 to think that the situation might be too complex for the Silent. Holes, it’s too complex for 65536 and it’s been working as a guard for multiple years now.
“So, what do you think?” 65536 finishes its recap.
“Why are you asking me? I was just curious why you rushed out of the showers. You should know better what goes through your Queen’s head. Last time I was even in the same city as her it was Shining Armor’s cock.”
“BB, please,” 65536 hops off of the bed and nudges the sitting ex-Prince with its head, “I know we didn’t do it, but who could? You know diplomatics!”
“Diplomacy.”
“That, yes.”
Faced with the pleading stare of the drone, Blueblood rolls his eyes, closes them, slowly breathes in and out, and puts his mind to good use for once - namely to run through his knowledge of court politics.
“The way I see it is that there are three ways to look at this,” says Blueblood after a while, “The less likely one, especially if you are so sure that none of the drones blamed for being the extensions of Chrysalis’ will actually did make and plant whatever bombs they’re imagining blew up the ship, is that Chrysalis would know she would be the first suspect in case of any mishap and would use it to say - you’re just blaming me because I’m a changeling and you don’t like us. The second possibility is that somepony else thought exactly the same and tries to get away with a mass assassination attempt, knowing that you changelings will be forced to take the fall. Option number three is that it really was a weird magical accident. Near-impossible but worth mentioning.”
“And what do you think?”
“Number two, definitely. As in the hive changelings being in deep shit, especially this close to the Griffon Empire.”
“But this island doesn’t belong to anyone, right? Miss Sun Hammer specifically said that.”
“Proximity is nine tenths of the law, 65536. If the griffons can get military presence to this island in one tenth of the time it would take Equestria it means their law applies. And griffons in general don’t like changelings, in case you missed that tiny detail. You can simply disappear and they can make up a viable cover story in the time it takes for the first investigator from Equestria to arrive,” Blueblood pauses, “Well, probably not you specifically, because Luna would literally drop the moon on the Empire and end all life on Equus if that happened, but you know what I mean. I hope.”
65536 sighs and plops its butt on the carpet right next to Blueblood.
“I’m a guard. I should be able to help them, find the bad guy, and clear their name, and I have no clue where to even begin.”
Blueblood shakes his head.
“You’re thinking about this in terms of petty crime. This is politics, the biggest crime of all, and it operates on completely different principles. Getting involved, even with the best intentions, can end up making things much worse.”
65536 lowers its head with another sigh.
“Are you saying I shouldn’t do anything?”
“I’m saying that there is way too much you’d have to learn before you could even begin applying your simplistic idea of ‘finding the bad guys and clearing the changeling name’. Right now, if I were the hive changelings, I’d either stay put in one place or maybe even visible in public so that I have an alibi for every minute of the day, do that until this trip is over, and don’t give anyone any reason to even think I’m doing something shady.”
65536 pouts at the floor, but something in Blueblood’s voice is telling the drone that this isn’t just ex-Prince’s lack of hope talking again.
The thoughtful silence only grows when Smiley’s constant scribbling stops. The Silent looks at Blueblood, tilts its head as far as it can in an attempt to see him upside-down, and finally shuffles over to 65536, rubbing its nose with its own.
“Smiley? Whatcha doing?” 65536 can’t help smirking at the bent Silent.
“Pretending it has my aunt’s neck,” comments Blueblood.
Presumably dissatisfied with its effort, whatever it was, Smiley straightens up, shakes its head to make the sudden weird sparks in its eyes go away, and grabs its slate again. After a moment, it scribbles-
[<- :)]
-and pokes 65536 with it.
“What?” the drone blinks in surprise.
“Clearly, Smiley is learning magic and this is a cheer up spell,” Blueblood crosses his forelegs on his chest, visibly amused… which is something 65536 hasn’t seen since being asked to go on this trip, “Smiley, cast punch- OW!”
Even he can’t be annoyed with the Silent grinning from ear to ear who rubs its face against his chest like a cat after quite gently jabbing him, so Blueblood just massages his ribs.
“Only if you cheer up too, I guess,” 65536 smiles back.
Smiley scribbles on its slate again, and this time the message simply reads [?-_-].
65536 rubs its head, making Blueblood lean closer and say:
“I have absolutely no idea what this means.”
“Hmmm… sleepy time?” 65536 takes a guess. Smiley nods and yawns, “Ohhhh! Sure, you can go back to the other drones. It’s pretty early, but we just wanted to keep you around until we knew nothing bad was going on. Good night, Smiley.”
Smiley gives it a hug and doesn’t leave even Blueblood out, and finally trots out of the suite.
Several minutes later, it enters the hive delegation’s suite which had been thoroughly cleaned up at some point. There are only a bunch of cardboard boxes of various sizes in the living room, some overturned with a hive link one or two coming from the spot signalling someone is under the box. Most open ones are filled with Scufflestick tinies, and the only openly visible drone is 99380 sleeping in an armchair next to the table with a quietly chatting radio. It’s still two hours before normal sleepy time but if the others are okay then no one will likely be mad at it if it goes to sleep too. Plus, 65536 didn’t mind, and 65536 is a great number who knows a lot of important stuff.
Some examination of the cardboard boxes later, Smiley concludes that these portable holes are perfect for sleeping in, hops into one, curls up, and quickly falls asleep.
***
To its own surprise, 10013 wakes up refreshed and much earlier than usual.
It’s still dark outside. How long was I-? Huh, even shorter than the sleepy times during the old days. I’m feeling great, though.
The drone stretches- or attempts to and accidentally throws the overturned cardboard box off of itself, having entirely forgotten falling asleep under it.
Okay, still dark anyway.
10013 stretches this time for real, once again noting how different the new carapace feels.
Perhaps I should try doing the yoghurt thingy with Miss Cadance again?
Judging by the amount of glowing eyes and the activity of hive links around, the falling box woke up only the veterans used to going from zero to full alert at any noise in the vicinity. 99526’s link is barely present, the drone sleeping off its exhaustion from throwing up for a full day. 99111, buried under a pile of flat pieces of cardboard, seemingly tried to build something out of the boxes earlier and failed miserably. 99380 just mumbles incoherently and resumes drooling on the armchair.
“Heya, guys!” 10013 greets the awoken drones peeking out from their respective boxes.
*Happy, yawning face.*
“Hi!” 20100 waves at it.
“Good morning! Whoa, not morning, actually…” comments 36658, rubbing its eyes.
“Sorry for waking you up with all that noise,” 10013 rubs its head.
“It’s fine. I’m a bit dizzy, but it feels like my leggos want to get moving,” 20100 examines its situation and stretches.
“We spent the whole day just lying around, messing with goop figurines, and doing head and thinking stuff,” 36658 hops out of its box, lies down, and stretches all four legs at once, “I don’t think we’re built for that and our leggos want a turn too.”
*Scribble scribble scribble!*
*Eager face!*
Smiley holds up its slate showing [o].
“The letter o?”
“Zero?”
“A circle? Maybe a blank face?”
As the trio hazard their guesses, Smiley thinks for a moment before a small correction: [O]
“The big letter O?”
“Open mouth!”
“A hole?”
*HAPPY FACE!*
Smiley nods and beams at 36658, the winner of the guessing game.
“You know, that’s not a bad game,” says 10013, “We could call it the draw-guess game and show the guys back home.”
“True,” 20100 shoots Smiley an excited glance, “Wanna get some practice in? I can draw a whole bunch of things.”
Smiley shakes its head.
“Alrighty, maybe later,” 20100 shrugs.
Smiley decides to rethink its strategy and scribbles [->O].
“We go to the hole?”
“You wanna show us a hole?”
“We point into the hole!”
Smiley rubs its head briefly before a slow nod. Some of that sounded… right.
“Since it’s too early to do anything else, let’s go explore Smiley’s hole!” 10013 makes the executive decision.
Leaving its box, the Silent trots over to the balcony door, cracks it open just enough to leave the room and, followed by the veteran trio, flies into the air where it remains hanging until 36658 closes the glass door behind itself to prevent the outside noises from waking the other drones up. After that, the four drones take off to the north, nearly invisible black dots set against the still dark sky.
***
The sky has brightened considerably despite the sun still not being visible by the time the four drones land by one of the many unremarkable ruins of walls scattered all over the volcano’s terrace which Smiley previously visited with Gem and 387. To be specific, it’s the ruin where a plaque identified a black rectangle on the ground as a “Grave of a city official”.
Smiley waves its slate in the air, hopping on the grave again, albeit this time much more carefully.
“A hole…” mumbles 10013, tapping its hoof on the soft soil next to the heavy, black stone. The faint tremors only a drone would sense spreading from the point of impact reveal to it that while the surrounding ground is just normal soft soil that most of the surface world known to 10013 seems to be made of, the black stone is covering an empty area leading deep down as far as the drone’s senses can reach, “Huh, there is a tunnel under that grave thingy.”
“It’s a weird material,” 36658 taps on the grave itself, “Not as hard as black-hard, but close. I haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else.”
“Guys, I don’t like the amount of shinies these scribbles are saying we’ll have to pay if we break anything,” 20100 rubs its head, reading the plaque with the potential fine, “Last time I got that many we nearly got thrown out of the casino.”
“I don’t think anything past direct digging would even scratch this thingy,” 10013 steps on the grave and begins examining the headstone, “See?” it stomps on the grave and leans down to examine the smooth, black surface. As it leans so close, its stubby ears twitch, “Can anyone else hear buzzing?”
*Beep!*
“Aah?!” with a jolt, 10013 steps backwards, staring at a newly opened, narrow, black slot at its eye height in the headstone. The only reason none of the drones are flying off in synchronized panic is that all this time everyone has been assuring them that they’re not in any danger and their own experiences confirmed that so far.
A green shimmer passes through the slot from left to right and then back, the glow scattering into a triangular shape to encompass 10013’s full stature.
“Language recognized-” states a disembodied and distorted voice seemingly coming from the headstone.
“Whosaidthat?!” 10013’s head snaps from side to side.
“Sounds like it’s coming from the upright triangle thingy,” 36658 walks over while 20100 instinctively turns away from the duo and scans the dim morning light for any signs of an ambush.
Smiley starts waving its slate covered in [?????????????], which is accompanied by a repeating chain of:
*Worried face!* *Spooked face!*
“-biometric data match. Welcome -bzzt-! State your rank,” the weird voice continues, clearly unbothered by the drones’ panic.
36658 jabs 10013’s side with a knee.
“Uhh, 10013?” replies the drone.
“Processing. Unable to establish database connection. Local profile data storage successful. Access denied -bzzt!- access to the outer facilities granted under emergency restoration protocol. Please, step away from the hatch,” the voice confuses the drones even further.
“You guys heard all of that too, right?” 10013 looks at 20100 and 36658 who both nod.
“Please, step away from the hatch,” repeats the voice.
“Anyone got any idea what it means by hatch? I can’t see any eggs anywhere,” with neither 99380 nor any high rank in reach, 10013’s knowledge suddenly feels unpleasantly limited.
I suppose we’ll be seeing a lot of unidentifiable “thingies”.
“Please, step away from the hatch.”
“Step away from where you are now, maybe?” says 36658, taking a step back itself and proving once again that sometimes even a drone can fight off blind panic and think clearly.
10013 hops off of the black stone and, as soon as it does, the stone somehow folds like fabric into the bottom of the probably-not-a-grave’s probably-not-a-headstone, revealing a tunnel seemingly made for someone slightly larger than a drone containing a narrow and steep staircase leading into complete darkness.
“Please, follow the -bzzt- lights,” says the voice. As the four drones look into the dark hole, something in the distance flashes, buzzes, and bursts into a shower of sparks before going dark again.
Safe in the knowledge that they can always dig themselves out, 10013 asks:
“Up for some adventure, guys?”
“This doesn’t look like one of the attractions. It definitely wasn’t on the map,” comments 36658 with hesitation.
“Maybe it’s a secret one!” says 20100.
“It’s not impossible,” admits 36658, “There is a lot of strange stuff around this island.”
“Smiley, what do you think? This was all your idea in the first place,” 10013 nods to the Silent.
Smiley waves its question mark filled tablet and starts climbing down the stairs. Come to think of it, the tunnel seems to be more suited to its size than that of normal drones.
After a final exchange of shrugs and glances, 10013, 20100, and 36658 follow Smiley into the darkness, and the strange black hatch unfolds after their passing, blocking their access to the surface.
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Somewhere deep, far beyond history, theres a wall that the drones just cant Dig?
Bzzt
Hmm, just missing some random numbers on top of the hatch in this buggy version of Lost, heh.
11466445
If I had to guess, it's not that they couldn't dig it. It was just difficult to dig.
I'm glad the drones are as innocent as they are....
11466526
There were random numbers on top of the hatch. But the voice made them step away.
More hole exploring fun time, YAY!
Well, politically-speaking, yes, I suppose that's been well demonstrated, but it's worth noting we've already encountered a couple of griffons that didn't seem to have so severe a problem with changelings that they weren't still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even that griffon cook proved to be surprisingly tolerant of the drones and their antics, even when he justifiably had no reason to, considering how it was hindering his attempts to do his job.
...actually, thinking about it, I think that griffon officer doing most of the accusing of Chryssi is really kind of the first griffon we've encountered that was really that outwardly "all changelings are evil, no exceptions" about it. I mean, if I'm forgetting anyone else, then by all means remind me, but...
Point is, there's sufficient evidence to not want to just blanket assume all griffons on this island want the changelings gone that badly, because it seems not all of them actually do...or at least not so much that they're going to make the effort to protest their presence or refuse to associate with them, meaning that there are probably griffons who can be reasonable over this and not so quick to blindly accuse without evidence.
As such, I highly doubt all of that will happen, simply because there doesn't seem to be enough of a unified group from the griffons pushing for it. Not unless they've all been faking it so to fool the changelings into letting their guard down, but not only would that raise unsavory implications about the griffons' own involvement in the ship's sinking, I have a hard time believing the griffons can really unify that well so to consistently set up such a wide-scale deception.
Plus, if that's really all the griffons want, and they really can just do that...then why haven't they just done that already? Why wait until now? The argument they were waiting for actual evidence to back themselves up with doesn't fly, because their "evidence" has already proven not to fly with pretty much all of the non-griffon authorities here, at least not enough for them to be willing to step aside and just let the griffons have their way with the changelings, meaning they get ultimately nowhere meaningful with such a hypothetical plan. And if they were really going to rely on such sketchy evidence to begin with, then still why would they wait this long to make the move? Why not do so immediately after the crash, when they still would've had "evidence" enough, and plenty of heated emotions to help keep creatures from looking at the logic gaps?
I mean, Blueblood's still right to point it out as a possibility, and it's one worth keeping in mind...but I don't think it's how this is actually going to go down regardless.
True, but let's be honest--that'd still ultimately be the end goal of it all.
Ah, so this is why this arc is titled "Smiley's Hole." I admit, I've been wondering how that was going to play out since the arc's first chapter.
Gem really do be sus guys.
11466445
Technically, no. It only varies in difficulty.
11466485
Beep boop.
11466526
Where's cloud Sombra when you need him?
11466531
Yup.
11466610
They are. I'm a creepy old man by now.
11466653
But where's the crashed plane- oh fk, I really did accidentally walk into Lost, did I? I didn't even see a single episode of that show, I just know some memes!
11466717
More on DroneHub.
11467168
- There are civilians, whose (I think from somewhere in Blaze's stories? I'm not sure myself.) exposure to changelings might be just an old boogeyman story or a more ingrained cultural wariness, so that would vary widely. And then there's the military/law enforcement aka. the thumbs, whose reaction might be much stricter. Next, there are high ranks and there are drones. The difference in perceived threat and thus general acceptability could be night and day... unless horny, then high ranks win.
- Well, their evidence is shaky but far from dismissable unless you'd want to say that paladins don't know how to use magic properly. On the other hand, we're working with a loooot of assumptions here. The smoke monster might mean something entirely different.
- maybe, or maybe just the advice to ride it out could be the way.
- it was going to be either the gender thing I promised about Smiley or something digging related. Or maybe both yet! It's a mysteryyyyy...
11467301
Vent, Gem. Vent!
just caught up
11467503
No need to rush. Despite how low effort this sometimes feels, it takes a few minutes longer to write than to read. Maybe even double digit of minutes.
11467879
i know i know
The plot thickens...
No, not like that! Get your mind out of the gutter!
11468248
Mmmmm... but the gutter is so nice and comfy.
Why are your lings so much fun
I'm still going with ancient advanced changeling city! Good chapter
11468425
Are they?
11468456
The lost city of Gooptlantis.
11468582
Na Shinytopia
11468582
Yes
A thousand times yes
As long as this hatch doesn't have any numbers from 4 to 42 it's gonna be OK.
11467357
Which one?
Also I think there was at least one crashed ship as well. But it was for 1 person...
yeah that dont look right
also havent bothered asking till now, how does Smiley's "faces" work through the mind-links or whatever they're called, are they like emojiis?
You're doing this on purpose aren't you.