Day 9 - The Wobbly-leg Frogger: 1/9
65536, 10013, and 36658, all still wearing camo carapace colors, rush through the jungle along a well-maintained tourist path while 65536 explains what to look out for.
“I don’t have much experience with jungles, but I’ve seen a documentary -at least I think it was a documentary- about Daring Do and they explained a lot in it that was very similar to my experience with the Everfree forest. The worst thing, at least for ponies, are the dangernoodles. There are bitey ones and crushy ones, but I don’t think they’re used to changelings, because I stepped on bitey ones multiple times by accident -they’re really hard to see in the dark- and they always bit me and then slunk off. It didn’t even scratch my carapace much.”
“So, not too dangerous noodles?” asks 10013.
“I think they’re super dangerous to ponies because they’re squishy,” 65536 shrugs, “The crushy ones are supposedly a problem even for changelings because if they catch you they just wrap around you and squeeze so hard they can crush all kinds of stuff, even pony suits of armor.”
“That sounds much worse!” comments 36658.
“It’s not that bad. Supposedly they’re really slow at crushing so we can always just dig them. High ranks and ponies can’t do that and not all unicorns can teleport away.”
“So, overall, dangernoodles are more noodles than danger, right?” summarizes 10013.
“Yup, but let’s be careful anyway,” 65536 ducks under a low hanging branch, “What’s much worse are stripey biters. They’re big like earth ponies, super quick, have sharp teeth and claws. Very nasty. They can sleep in bushes or in the trees and they can pounce on you. They don’t like loud things, from what the moving picture said, but we don’t want to be loud either.”
“Good thing it’s so bright outside at night,” comments 36658. While it is roughly ten o’clock at night, the starry dark sky with the moon shining with nearly zero cloud cover both mean the drones can see just fine.
“Yup, although stripey biters can supposedly see really well in the dark too,” 65536 pauses, “Got it! Muscly bashers! They’re huge, loud, super strong, quick, and move around in the tree canopies as well as on the ground. Those are a big no-no. I think they’re super territorial, though, so we might be in the clear if one of the tourist routes is near the area we need to search.”
“So, the biggest baddie, but it’s unlikely we’ll see it,” 10013 nods, “Anything else?”
“Most critters just run away when they sense anything unusual, which is why I’m sure we’re not being followed, because there are jungle noises all around,” says 65536, “Overall, jungles can be super nasty but it’s still a cakewalk compared to the tunnels.”
“Wait, walking on cake?” 10013 stops turning its head around while trotting and looks at 65536’s back, “Do ponies do that?”
“I think Princess Celestia does that sometimes,” admits 65536 after brief hesitation, “I once accidentally entered her room through a wobbly magical mirror connecting hers with Luna’s and she was having her hoof licked by two Royal Guards. I think ponies use cakewalk when they mean that something is easy.”
“Walking on cake can’t be easier than on rocks,” 36658 shakes its head.
“Yeeah, some pony sayings and names are kinda weird. That’s one thing we drones have got figured out much better,” says 65536 to the agreeing nods of its companions.
While the security briefing is over, the drones still have a long trek ahead of them.
***
20100 realizes it might be in trouble.
Its idea of painting portraits right next to the match between Chrysalis and Cadance originally sounded perfect. It would draw in some creatures interested in a picture, and they would proceed to watch the game while the portrait is being drawn. The speed painting idea it came up with looked even better. Until…
Until it noticed that there were more creatures interested in its paintings than in the board game itself despite Trixie’s valiant play-by-play commentary, 99’s tactical analysis, and Bright Star gradually adding special effects to the live action map projected above the crowd.
Maybe the Queen won’t be so mad?
“-AND WITH THIS DICE ROLL IT SEEMS LIKE THE EMPIRE OF LING’S LINE OF DEFENSE IS STARTING TO CRUMBLE UNDER THE ONSLAUGHT OF SHINING ARMOR AND HIS EQUESTRI KNIGHTS!” Trixie’s voice booms through the air, “PERHAPS THE QUEEN WOULD DO BETTER TO CONCEDE THIS BATTLE AND RETHINK HER STRATEGY FOR GAME TWO.”
Oh goop…
Thankfully, those mobile of promenade vendors moved their carts close to this gathering, so even those guests who are uninterested in the game itself are still around, enjoying the food and, quite likely, Chrysalis’ public defeat. How the Queen will treat the situation is a question.
“I MUST ADMIT THAT THE FLANK USING A UNIT OF INFILTRATOR ASSASSINS TO TAKE DOWN THE EQUESTRI CHAMPION WAS AN EXCELLENT MOVE, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE THE OPPORTUNITY CAME WAY TOO LATE,” adds 99, “I’M NOT ABOUT TO GIVE TIPS TO ANYONE BUT IF SHINING ARMOR MAKES THE MOVE I’M THINKING OF THEN THE ONLY HOPE REMAINING FOR THE QUEEN WILL BE QUITE CRAZY DICE LUCK. AAAND YEP, HERE GOES THE CAVALRY CHARGE RIGHT PAST THE OCCUPIED LING FRONT LINE.”
Oh double goop.
“Hey, changeling, are you about done?” asks a griffon waiting for his quick painting.
“Uhh?” 20100 twitches, blinks, and returns to reality, “Yes, yes yes,” it nods distractedly and presents the canvas to the griffon.
“Excellent!” the griffon tosses a dark blue gem cut into an oval shape to 20100, “Here you go!”
“Thank you, but I didn’t ask for-” 20100 stops and just takes the gem from the ground, putting it into a new dent in its leg carapace. Despite it not asking for any rewards tonight, many nobles, or pretty much anyone who came and asked for a quick, simplified painting, gave it gold or small gems. By now, the saddlebag in which 20100 previously had its drawing supplies is entirely insufficient to hold the received bounty, leaving the drone’s carapace seriously blinged out. If this goes on, 20100’s direct monetary value might reach that of some of the resort buildings.
“MY turn, you lowlife!” a griffon matriarch, no other word would properly describe the female, shoves a different approaching griffon aside and walks right up to 20100. The griffon reaches for a rapier on his belt and opens his beak for a furious ‘How dare you?!’ but when he realizes who he’s about to talk to he chokes on his saliva and backs off into the crowd without a word. 20100, of course, has absolutely zero clue who the massive matron is and offers a smile that’s more nervous due to the overall situation than her, which is something she misses entirely, “Hmph, more respect on a changeling’s face than from some irrelevant court noble. Griffons these days. Changeling!”
“Yes, Miss?”
“That’s High Duchess of Bloodstone for you, changeling,” she looks down at the drone.
“Yes, Miss High, uhh, da cheese, of blood stones?” 20100 scratches its head as the nearest members of the crowd gasp, “Do you want a picture?”
The Duchess narrows her eyes but, to the unvoiced shock of everyone who heard the exchange, doesn’t press the issue. Instead, she skips to the task ahead.
“Yes, I do. However, I require more than a simple picture.”
“I’m just drawing these today, Miss,” 20100 points to the empty canvas and next turns its head in panic, looking for the last customer who vanished into the crowd, “Uhh, I mean simpler pictures. I didn’t even get the proper paints for the pictures I drew on the ship.”
“Not what I meant, changeling!” she briefly leans to 20100’s ear and whispers, “Could you paint my head on someone else’s body?”
20100 shakes its head.
“I can’t do imaginary stuff yet, Miss. That’s why I’m practicing.”
“What if I brought someone else?”
20100 ponders it, suddenly intrigued by the idea. Since it draws from memory anyway it could just be drawing a part of one picture and the rest from a different one.
“That sounds interesting, but I think you’d both need to strike the same pose. It’s worth a shot,” the drone beams in the end.
“Excellent!” the matriarch looks backwards and calls out, “Servants, get Clara here!” as several griffons disappear into the crowd, she continues, “Now let’s discuss your payment.”
20100 waves its gem-covered leg.
“I don’t think I want more shinies, Miss. I’m starting to have trouble raising my leggos.”
“Servants, chicks, territory, a minor title,” the Duchess waves her foreleg dismissively, “I have the resources.”
“I… could you help me with something?”
“Are you asking me a favor? Alright, present your request.”
“Well, I think my Queen will be kinda mad at me because there are more creatures watching me draw than watching her game. On top of that it seems as if she’s losing so she might not be in a great mood later. Could you maybe ask some of your friends to go watch her games tonight?”
“Is that it?” she asks after a moment of watching the drone with a raised eyebrow.
“Too much?” asks 20100, “Sorry, I guess a shiny is good too. I’m using up a lot of paints and drawing sticks so I gotta buy more.”
The Duchess taps her beak with a talon, thinking.
“Would two hundred griffons be enough?” she asks.
“Two- huuuuh?” 20100’s eyes go wide, “YESSSS!”
“Then we have a deal,” she nods and strikes a haughty pose with one foreleg raised, “Start drawing my head, changeling. Clara should be here soon.”
“Already here, mother,” says a faintly familiar female voice which makes 20100 look out of the cover of its easel. It’s the griffon chick who offered 20100 and 99526 a ‘good time’ on the ship.
“Hello, good time catbird lady!” it greets her with a wave and a smile. Clara winces and almost imperceptibly shakes her head, a gesture which is entirely lost on 20100.
“Clara, pose!” the Duchess strikes her pose again and her daughter does the same.
20100 takes a good look at both one more time and says:
“Yup, I think this can work,” it nods.
“Good, then get to painting and I’ll uphold my end of the bargain.”
She barks several orders and disappears into the crowd. Shortly after, the amount of griffons watching Chrysalis’ game starts growing, doing wonders to alleviate 20100’s nervousness.
Phew! Lucky meeting such a nice lady.
***
Shortly after leaving the resort behind them, 65536, 10013, and 36658 broke into a gallop, knowing that even with the Queen taking her time and the match lasting into the full three games they’ll have an hour per game at best. Thankfully, while the tourist route through the jungle wouldn’t lead them directly to the area they had to search it would get them close enough. On top of that, now that they’re running along it seems that both the jungle animals as well as the elusive hippogriff tribe know to leave the well-maintained path alone. Thanks to all those factors they reach the area where they should leave the path within half an hour and take a couple minutes to recover from all the running. 65536 is used to endurance tests like this from its guard training but the other two have to sit down, gasping for breath. When drones flee from monsters in the tunnels, it’s usually in short, fast bursts.
As the breathing of the drones calms down, 65536 takes care to listen.
“Good, I don’t think we’re being followed,” it says.
“What makes you think that?” counters 36658, “Anything can be hiding in all the greenery.”
“I’m as sure as I can be,” 65536 looks around, “Can you hear all the bleeping and squawking and all the weird noises? That means the wildlife thinks everything is the same as any other night. If there was, let’s say, a group of griffons following us, the surface critters would hide and stay quiet. I remember that from Nightguard wilderness trips.”
“That’s good news then,” 10013 stands up, stumbling as its legs protest but remaining upright, “Everyone ready? We can’t be sure how much time we have.”
“Yup,” with a quiet grunt which is the only noise the drones have made in the real world aside from breathing, 36658 gets up as well.
“Do we fly now that we have to leave the road?” asks 10013.
“We will, at least until we get to the area we’re supposed to search. It would probably be quieter to keep floating all the time, but we gotta look at things up close to hear the electric buzzing,” says 65536, “We’ll just have to be careful where we step.”
They take into the air, carefully buzzing a short distance from the ground and avoiding trees and low-hanging branches as best as they can. When they cross the border of the circle on their mental map marking the designated area they land and look around.
“Okay, can anyone hear anything?” asks 65536 to no avail and shrugs, “Guess it would be too optimistic to expect a quick success.”
“Where do we start? Do we just… walk and look around?” asks 36658.
“From what we’ve seen so far, 10101 has been nothing if precise, so maybe we just head to the center of the map circle?” suggests 10013 and 65536 nods.
Minutes pass with the drones stopping to listen every few pony lengths. Interesting nooks and crannies get searched with no result, and-
“Aaah?!” is the first voiced thing that comes out of any drone’s mouth since they left the resort, and that’s when 10013’s world suddenly turns upside down after it takes a step forward after checking a tree trunk from all sides. Something 10013 can only identify as tentacles wrap around the drone with a creaking noise, binding it in their tight and inescapable embrace.
65536 and 36658 immediately rush over to 10013 now hanging upside-down from a tree branch in a net made from vines. As they float up to cut it out, they hear a sharp whistle followed by a yell and they look around only to see two shadows swoop from the nearby branches and wrap them in another net. They’re dragged down but before they hit the ground the nets stop their descent and they can finally twist around to see what’s going on, revealing two equines covered in mud and leaves who would look like pegasi were it not for their larger size and talons on their forelegs instead of hooves.
36658’s hooves glow and few pieces of vines around them drop off, but the drone is just flailing without coordination so it’s failing to do any significant damage to the heavy net. 65536, on the other hole, doesn’t get disoriented and digs a hole for itself almost immediately with a synchronized, wide swing with all four legs. Its experience from being punted around in various directions by 387 helps it reorient itself in mid-air and charge the nearer hippogriff native head on while covering its muzzle with its forelegs.
The hippogriff clearly has no idea who he is facing because his focus remains on holding one end of the wide, now split, net into which the two hippogriffs just caught 65536 and 36658, and 65536 rewards him with an impact of a rather furious, sentient brick into his ribcage, knocking the air out of him and sending him to the ground, safe in the knowledge that it won’t cause critical damage because they’re only roughly two pony lengths above ground. Without hoofcuffs, dispatching a target of easily four-to-five times its size would be tough for someone like 65536, but a changeling is a changeling, so it lands on the hippogriff and when he raises its forelegs to protect himself 65536 spits a glob of quickly hardening goop on them.
Unfortunately, when 65536 hops off of the hippogriff and looks around to assess the situation, it quickly dawns on it that running away from tunnel monsters is a poor substitute for real combat training, especially when drones aren’t allowed to dig anyone. There are three more hippogriffs in sight now, 10013 is tightly tied up with more vine nets while its captor has one foreleg on it and is holding a spear touching its head with the other. Same is true for 36658, just with more nets.
“I’m an Equestrian Nightguard and we are all resort guests. We’re not here to fight. This is a misunderstanding,” 65536 says out loud, but its only answer are the tips of two spears scraping against 10013’s and 36658’s carapaces. It’s fairly sure that it could fight its way out of this, but it wouldn’t be able to do it before the two drones get impaled and without either killing or crippling the three hippogriff natives which could cause a lot of trouble for the other resort guests. So, with a heavy sigh, it sits down and raises its forelegs in submission, “I give up, just don’t harm them, please.”
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Somegriff was waiiiiting.
Im trying to remember the name of an obscure scifi movie based on an old short story, with the warning, Be careful how you treat your children, they might turn out exactly as you want?
Fortunately, I very much highly doubt any of you will encounter any of those on a relatively small island like this--not known for inhabiting isles such as this naturally, them.
Honestly, I think the worst threat they're liable to face would really just be the griffons--either the ones standing guard or the ones reportedly digging for the goodies they're coming to snatch up first--but we'll see. Maybe I'll be surprised.
What I would imagine to be fairly minimal light pollution from any artificial light sources also probably helps with that.
...I don't wanna know...I don't wanna know...I don't wanna know...I don't wanna know...
That's true, they aren't really ones for the metaphorical...mostly because it'd just fly over their heads more often than not, but beside the point.
Well, at least she's not offering slaves like whoever the heck that one guy was from a few chapters back.
Huh. Admittedly, hadn't expected her to show up again...might have to go back and review the chapter she last popped up in now...
If this matriarch is a "nice lady," then G5's Opaline is a saint.
Oh yeah, forgot that had been previously established as on the island too...guess that's another "more likely threat to encounter" to add to the list...
Plot complication! But an interesting one, as now I'm curious about this hippogriff tribe and if they somehow fit into all of this or if it really is just a misunderstanding. With the drones' luck, probably not, but we'll see.
11505446
A true hunter waits for their prey.
11505851
- Good thing I didn't plan for that encounter or my woeful lack of research would have shown- I mean, uhh, EXACTLY! That's why there hasn't been one so far and... and... 65536 would mention those because it would have only seen them in the Daring Do movies which take place on the mainland, according to the map of Equestria.
- Yup. The resort would be pretty bright but anything outside that would be entirely black.
- Really? I mean reeeeeeaaaally? 65536 After Dark, the Accidental Edition - coming next year.
- Many things fly over the drones' heads. Because they're short.
- I mean, if she's offering a servant to a changeling, I doubt it's a contractual one, more the indentured kind.
- It's really not relevant, but is it possible that 20100 would be, after Three and Six, the third drone to get laid? Actually, chronologically the first one? Are we getting another After Dark chapter? Will I give in, make a Patreon, and become a clop writer? Judging from my two "supplementary" chapters from Imbalanced: After Dark, the answer is a definite probably maybe unlikely.
- G5 Opaline oscillates between annoying and flat and evil for the sake of cartoonish evil when they try to make us take her seriously but absolutely hilarious when they don't. I think she should gothe way of Megamind as the funny AND COMPETENT "villain" instead of a bumbling fool.
- The Infamous Chekov's Smoking Tribal Spear.
- I'm one hundred percent sure that it will either be something worthy of a Picard facepalm or a heart-wrenching moment where a beloved character dies. There's no inbetween with me, as we've already learned many a time.
11506054
why would they name the city after the law enforcement division?
I mean,
Metro Police?
11506054
Yes, but she's at least saving face by still referring it as a "servant" so there's some wiggle room in the interpretation. Last guy flat-out openly called them "slaves," leaving no room for doubt.
Eh, true, but she still has her moments as a competent villain (she's at least more believable than, say, Cozy Glow). Really, her biggest stumbling block (besides her ego the size of a planet) is really her own hired help, Misty, either just having rotten luck accomplishing her given objectives, or just doesn't actually have her heart in carrying out orders to the letter as asked.
But this is neither here nor there in terms of this fic.