Day 9 - The Wobbly-leg Frogger: 7/9
What the holes?!” 387 jumps outside through the door, scanning the area for threats and spotting no immediate danger. The only thing he notices are creatures all over the beach still looking around after being quite literally shaken.
“What’s wrong?” asks 99, leaning over 10013.
Chrysalis doesn’t seem as worried as either of the two high ranks as she joins the examination of the drone.
“387, unless we’re being attacked by an army of morbidly obese whorses, get back inside,” she says in a calm and focused tone that’s so unusual for her that the warrior obeys without commenting and closes the door behind himself.
“No idea what the earthquake was about but we’re not in any immediate danger,” he reports, “With the exception of 10013.”
“Poison?” asks 99, swiping her hoof through the foam around its mouth and sniffing it.
“In a sense,” Chrysalis’s horn glows and both high ranks sense her draining 10013’s energy to a critical degree where the drone’s legs instinctively bend and close up to its body as a signal of it dropping into the state of hibernation, “Lust overdose.”
“Lust?” 387 blinks and leans backwards, “What?”
“That’s a thing?” asks 99, earning a raised eyebrow from both Chrysalis and 387.
“I’ve finally figured it out - your rank isn’t 99,” 387 looks at her, “Nowhere near-”
“Later!” Chrysalis barks at 387 after 99 looks at her, “Yes, if a changeling has too much lust and too little love, their body can use it for a big boost of energy at the price of physical damage. Ranked changelings rarely suffer from this because your bodies can use lust better and your overall vastly greater energy capacity means you’ll recognize problematic symptoms of the imbalance long before it cuts you down. A drone, however, that’s out of love who would suddenly gain a large charge of lust would have no way of burning it off and would end up like this,” she pokes 10013.
“Are you saying that someone-” 387 gives 10013 a sideways glance that one could call impressed.
“Yes, someone has very recently screwed our drone in the interesting sense of the word,” Chrysalis nods.
“Will it be okay?” asks 99.
“Of course,” Chrysalis waves her hoof, “I’ve drained it dry and I’ll feed it a proper mix of love and lust which won’t hurt it, and I don’t doubt we’ll learn who’s the interested paramour. 387, I can feel you glaring at me and I swear that if you say something along the lines of ‘Chrysalis, please do not kill anyone’ I will punch you in the dick using your ballsack as nunchucks.”
“Your Majesty,” starts 387, which makes both mares look at him, “I was going to ask the exact opposite, specifically to let me teach whoever did this a lesson.”
“Denied,” Chrysalis smirks at 387, “What? Are you only now finally feeling a fraction of what I feel when someone screws with my hive because it, for once, happened to the drones you oh so favor?”
The warrior opens his mouth and shuts it without a word…
…because she’s right on the money.
“Thought so,” Chrysalis chuckles, grabbing 10013 by its hind leg, raising it into the air and turning it around, “At least you have the strength of character to not lie to me about it. No, 387. 10013 will be okay. I don’t see any physical damage that would hint at a physical assault and rape so I’m guessing someone just wanted to have sex with a changeling and the three of us were too scary. Or they were a pedo and thought the drones were our young, which might be way more likely on this island full of nobles. Whatever the case is, we can't afford to act out so we’ll take this event, shove it into the smallest mental compartment we have, and forget it happened until we’re home where we’ll think about things without the imminent threat of getting double-teamed in the ass by paladins and griffons.”
She unceremoniously drops 10013, breathing out a small cloud of seemingly living green mist which engulfs the drone’s head before being absorbed. Moments later, 10013’s tightened up body relaxes and the drone blinks.
“...ow…” is all it groans.
They wait until 10013 pushes itself up into a sitting position and looks at them one by one with confusion and growing worry, stopping on Chrysalis and immediately trying to look as small as possible.
“What happened?” it asks.
“Is your name Queen Chrysalis?” asks Chrysalis.
“Umm, no? It’s 10013, I think.”
“Then I believe you just asked the question that Queen Chrysalis wanted to ask of a drone that just stumbled in here and passed out in a pool of goo,” she points at the green circle on the carpet.
“Oh…” 10013 blinks, “Did I do that? I’m sorry, I’ll get a bubble brick and-”
“10013, is something wrong with your ears?” Chrysalis leans closer, showing her teeth, but to the other high ranks her voice sounds tame, “Because I just asked you what happened, several seconds have passed, and you still haven’t answered.”
“Yesyourmajesty!” 10013 nods before gasping, “Noyourmajestymyearsarefine!”
“Could you stop scaring the drone?” asks 387.
“It nearly gave the three of us a heart attack. I think it’s fair,” Chrysalis smirks and boops 10013, “No more messing around then, 10013. Tell us what you were doing over the past few hours.”
10013 nods again and checks its internal timer.
“I’ve only been awake for a while, Your Majesty!” it starts reporting in the drawn out string response of a nervous drone, “I checked up on the others and most were super hungry after last night and then I realized that 99526 was still in the GIL so I went there and they refused to let it go and there was this Miss Clara who wanted to show 20100 a good time but 20100 said it was busy drawing so I went to tell her and she said she would help me with 99526 but she wanted to take a shower together and then she asked me if I could grow various jiggly bits and then it was like when we repaired the radio and had to plug its cable into these two holes in the wall to make it work but we did it over and over and I thought I was hurting her but she said to not stop and eventually we were done and she helped me get 99526 out of GIL and then I started feeling sick but I had to go here and tell you and things went woozy and… I woke up.”
Some deciphering later, Chrysalis simply asks:
“So 99526 is free?”
“Yup!”
“This Clara chick didn’t hurt you?”
“Nope. I was pretty confused, though.”
“Did you catch any filthy griffon STDs?”
“Were we supposed to catch things too? What’s an ass tee dee, anyway, Your Majesty?”
“A huge thing with sharp teeth that can spawn out of thin air and eat you if you do what you did with that Clara chick again without first telling one of us. Anyway, here’s a point for saving 99526,” Chrysalis closes the situation with an internal smirk because she knows both 387’s and 99’s snapped to look at her, “Anything else?”
[10013:5, 20100:7, 36658:5, 99111:4, 99380:6, 99526:3, Smiley:6,
65536:3]
“Oh yes, Your Majesty!” 10013 perks up, “I almost forgot. I didn’t just come to tell you to not worry about 99526, but I wanted to ask you if you could give the guys some love. They’re all hungry after yesterday… wait, I said that already,” it pauses, “For points, of course! I have five now, so that would be for… 20100, 36658, 99111, 99380, and 99526. Smiley is okay and so is 65536, I think.”
“And you?” Chrysalis tilts her head patiently.
“I can take it easy until I figure something out,” 10013 looks up at her with a tired but now reassured smile, “It’s important they aren’t hungry so they can have fun and teach guys back home as you said.”
[10013:0, 20100:7, 36658:5, 99111:4, 99380:6, 99526:3, Smiley:6,
65536:3]
“Send them here and they’ll get their recharge,” Chrysalis shrugs, “No one can say a Queen doesn’t fulfill her promises. Shut up, 387.”
The warrior wasn’t about to say anything, so he shoots her a glare.
“Thank you, Your Majesty!” 10013 stands up, “I think that’s all I wanted.”
“Good, now off you go,” she shoos it away while nodding towards the door, “And be sure to avoid any STDs, as I said.”
“Meep! I thought the surface was much less spooky than home,” 10013 trots outside.
Chrysalis returns to the Scufflestick table and begins fixing the positions of the miniatures.
“I can feel you two watching me,” she says after a moment of silence, “Anything you want to say?”
“No, Your Majesty,” 387 and 99 answer immediately.
“Good, now let’s figure out how I can maximize the elasticity of Shining Armor’s anus in this stupid game. He won’t surprise me next time and I will make sure there is a next time if I have to invade the Crystal Empire!”
***
Some explaining what 20100 has no clue how to draw later, Trestle finally understands:
“I was wrong, you’re not a creative artist,” he breathes out, “You’re more like a living mix of a printer and a camera!”
“I guess…” 20100 nods, “Is that bad?”
“It’s… a whole different thing,” Trestle trots over to the door and turns off the lights before starting to open all the curtains and letting the natural early evening light inside, “It means all the painting we’ve been doing was pointless because you can just perfectly draw what you see the second you understand how to mix colors and apply paints,” he opens the main curtain covering the glass pane door of the balcony and slides it open to let fresh air in.
“It wasn’t useless, I had fun,” 20100 smiles at him.
*Achoo!*
As the sun touches his nose, Trestle starts sneezing like a madpony.
“Are you okay?” asks 20100 when Trestle’s sneezing fit ends after a moment, leaving the earth pony with wet eyes and drippy nose.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, grabbing a tissue from a nearby box and blowing his nose, “It’s just photosensitive ptarmosis, photoptarmosis for short. It’s a reaction some ponies have when they’re suddenly exposed to direct sunlight, nothing problematic.”
“Potato-pharmaceutics?” 20100 checks the hive mind for explanations of the weird words and finds nothing.
“Don’t worry about it, it’s not from ponish but from an old, pre-Equestrian language that’s still used in science. The condition doesn’t exactly have an equivalent in ponish.”
“I’ve just made one in dronish!” 20100’s puzzled expression changes once again into a smile.
“Hmm?”
“You’re shinysneezitive!”
“I’ll stick to the official name, thank you.”
“Photosneezitive? That way you have part of the old name.”
Trestle pauses for a moment.
“You know, you are creative with words, how come you can’t imagine and draw new things?”
“But that wasn’t anything imaginary,” 20100 shakes its head, “You see the big shiny, you sneeze. Simple. Drones aren’t supposed to lie, and we don’t because any high rank can check our head and munch us if we do. And what would be the point in lying to each other…?” 20100’s voice trails off as the image of 36658 telling completely nonsensical High Score stories back home flashes through its mind.
“I see,” Trestle rubs his chin, takes the filled canvas off of the easel and prepares an empty one, “But you’re thinking about it in the wrong way. The point of creative painting isn’t to lie- well, it is but not in the usual way when creatures lie if they want to avoid harm, gain some sort of a benefit, or harm someone else,” he rearranges the fruit bowl and writes down several notes into a pad lying on a chair nearby, “The point is to tell a story through a picture. The story doesn’t have to be real but its message can. We have photographs these days to accurately capture reality. Creativity is the more important part now.”
The image of 36658 returns with a vengeance, and 20100 feels as if it’s on the verge of some breakthrough but can’t put a hoof on what it is. Trestle misinterprets the drone’s expression as confusion about his statement, and tries again:
“The story, or a picture, can be only partially true, maybe it could be a picture of a somepony real in a situation that’s better than their current one, just to improve their mood whenever they see it- hah!” Trestle sits down and clops his hooves together, “Think of the picture of the Bloodstone Duchess, right?”
“Thinking!” 20100 nods, finding a hook it can use to mentally return to the explanation.
“The painting you made wasn’t the real Duchess, but I did see old paintings of her from different painters and in different styles. She used to be a strong lady, and in seeing your painting ability, she wanted a picture which would look realistic and remind her of how she looked when she was young and physically powerful again, since she’ll never be like that again at her age. In fact, the point of painting usually is to put an accent onto one specific part of the painted situation. It’s not lying, it’s putting focus on what’s important,” Trestle wisely decides that talking about abstract art would likely make the drone’s brain start dripping out of its ears.
“Can we… can you show me an example, please?” 20100 peeps, “I can’t… it’s hard…” its ears droop.
“Of course!” this time it’s Trestle who beams like a lighthouse, “Let’s start with something simple,” he points at the rearranged bowl and grabs his notepad, “You’re going to paint that with shading and everything, but in different colors that I’ve noted here,” he taps on the pad, “I’ll show you how to mix those if you need to. Once you get the hang of it we’ll move onto accenting specific things about a picture or straight up making something up. Small steps.”
“Yay?”
“Definitely yay.”
“Yayyyy!” 20100 perks up and, with a tongue stuck out to somehow improve its concentration, starts painting a blue apple.
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Meanwhile, with the Chrysalis school of herding Drones.
Story is good, words are appreciated.
Nope. I'm just enjoying the drones being drones.
Ah, the fun I used to have messing with the printre.
Once I got it working.
Rest your hand on the feed knob on the side to make the stepper make lower notes trying to move, changing the diffusion value on the dots, swapping in the colour ribbon for the black ribbon to change from greyscale to mud. getting the wrong initialisation codes so the picture ends up wo inches square, or dragging through 4 paages of fanfold.
And cameras are all about creativity. Why, these days you cant even get the option to have 10cm to infinity fixed focus, exposure etc on a modern camera, you have to always set up your shot and pray a pidgeon doesnt fly past triggering the autofocus reset and illumination recalibration.
Still, if Bue Berries, and Blue Blood maybe Blue Cherri Berry? Or Blue Apple.
Makes a change from a Black Berry?
NO! ... don't you dare doubt your direction of diligently designed delightful drones! They bring so much joy...
Breaking 200k is an awesome feat. It tells a lot about your ability to still entertain readers this far in. And it sounds like it is only 2/3 the way through!
You are definitely capable of maintaining coherence and interesting developments of all these changelings in a slow burn fic despite the constant and rapid shinanigans every chapter.
Tl;dr
You've definitely turned your writing skill into a talent
Please be more meandering and unfocused. That's where the best parts come from!
Meandering and unfocused is what drones on break time do best.
And I suspect she's more dead serious about this threat than usual, too.
What's this? Chrysalis actually and competently pursuing the sensible plan? I've heard of this miraculous event happening before, but...to actually see it take place...
Oh. Well, that answers that question.
...(why did I want to know the answer to this again?)...
Anyway, I suppose that was the obvious solution to the problem, to just have 10013 shapeshift the relevant "bits." They probably didn't do anything for it, but it's not like Clara cared about that, clearly.
The thing that gets me still is that Clara was, quite obviously, not hiding anything about her intentions, and had it been anyone but an ignorant drone, it would've been quite obvious what she meant. And the way she went about speaking of it, she knew full well that would be understood clearly by most anyone else, so much so I still think she fully expected the drones to already be fully in the know too, and I'm wondering if she ever caught on throughout all this that they weren't actually (assuming she cared). Point is, if Clara was as Chrysalis suggested earlier, just a pedo assuming the drones were changeling young, then you'd think she'd have anticipated her targets not being in the know and to plan accordingly...but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
Not that I'm excusing what she did here, of course, but she'll no doubt argue that she did nothing wrong, as from her perspective she concealed nothing and technically had consent seeing 10013 voluntarily went along with it (as likely any drone would've), never at any point seemed to not have that, and never truly forced anyone to do anything it didn't want to (as there was the implication that 10013 had the option of backing out if it had so chosen, not that this matters now). So on that grounds, I begrudgingly have to concede that Clara could've approached the whole matter way worse than she did. Yay? I guess?
Now there's a good deterrent to get a drone to keep from repeating this stunt again if I've ever heard one.
Well...not on this occasion, at least.
Oh yes, I've experienced this myself. Particularly in early mornings during the summertime, typically followed by at least three sneezes in quick succession.
Just in case anyone thought Nameless Narrator was making it up or anything.
Nah, I'd more call your story (most of your stories that I've seen in fact) an anthology, which is more a series of smaller stories strung together with an underlying storyarc or reoccurring theme/premise loosely interconnecting them. It's just one of many perfectly valid ways to write a story.
Honest question, would a story like this one (or Boss'/Blazing's/Silver Sun stories) make a (sci-fi/fantasy) book that would gather a somewhat viable audience? Because if I say it in the most positive way I can, I have my doubts. I definitely would like to write a real book and that's why I worry about meandering and just screwing around. But hey, one can dream.
11546581
I'd says that Ds are obedient but easily distracted rather than deliberately ignoring orders, but I dread to imagine what would happen is Ds had a bunny to play with for a while and then CH would tell them she'd go full Ozzy on the bunny and bite its head off if they didn't listen. A lot of wibbling, I guess.
11546582 11546583 11546830 11547042 11547185
I, much like drones, am suspicious of long and difficult words like marmalade.
My worry is usually that the story will just turn into bland mucking around but if it's not the case here then fine, you're getting one more day before the big finale.
11546607
The technology level would be more of a high quality polaroid cameras of, let's say, the nineties than today's. For Equestria it would be a bit lower, for the Empire maybe a polaroid with self... what do you call it when you get the picture immediately? I can't find the right word.
11546956
Hah. The second I'd try to monetize it I'd be the only one reading it
And no, we're almost finished but since you people have radically different and better feeling when you read this than I do then I have enough loose ends to tie up to write another day.
I just checked, and I do have a few stories over 200 and goddamn New Age is 300k but New Age has a massive plot to chew through while this is... screwing around and finding dwarf tech.
11547237
- The worst part is that she can then give him enough love to regenerate and have a full set of nunchucks.
- OUT OF CHARACTER! IMMERSION RUINED. 0/10 STORY.
- And this is why statutory rape, especially in school is such a complicated subject. I totally didn't just put this in for no reason other than to make someone seriously think about the idea with zero bearing on plot. Especially when I set it up on like day 2. I call it Chekhov's never used and forgotten condom.
- I heard that advanced syphilis makes holes in your dick. How would that manifest in a changeling if they could actually catch it?
- She's been trying since the invasion, at least.
-
- oh... huh... not sure what to think of that. I guess my problem with the idea is that the story statistics do usually show that the longer the story is the more the readership drops. For the anthology idea, if I look at, let's say, Blazing Light's storyline then that one dies off pretty much entirely by the end and I can easily say that at least New Age is pretty decent.
11547541
But MAN... a comic would be fucking AWESOME!
Seriously though...
It's hard to tell with the individual sets like Boss, blazing, etc...
But as far as your whole universe goes... the only issue I see is it's a bit complex. And there are some ridiculously complex series out there... so... I dont see it as that much of an issue tbh...
The slice of life-ness was a more than welcome thing. The subtle (for now?) plot is just fine...
This was wonderfully delightful.
Whatever may come, that won't change.
11547637
- Comic, eh? I guess it would be okay specifically for this one but drawing is entirely beyond me.
- There's nothing sadder than something that should have ended but keeps going until it loses everything worthwhile about itself. Aka. the curse of modern TV.
11548660
-i think it would be adorawesomable!
same
-
I mostly agree... but I have a bit of resistance to it... as long as it doesn't retcon or ruin the good that was already there, I don't mind things sticking around longer than they are supposed to. The people that like it will continue to like it. Those that don't will move on.
I STILL think Halo 3 was the last cannon Halo.
They hired people that hated halo do as to make it more mainstream... well... the consequence is that it is no longer Halo.
There are 2 things sadder to me...
1. Having something good finnally appear and being so invested in it, but then it's gone (canceled? Too short? Got removed?) and all you do is return day after day hoping to see it come back or at least something else to replace it and falling into depression because now you feel like there is nothing good left.
2. The worst is making almost everything that happens before it irrelevant.
The most egregious example is almost anything that abuses time travel.
Flashpoint paradox is a tragedy in my opinion... the announcement of it in the DC Live action bassically killed the little desire I had left to be invested in it.
In my opinion, this is why the Narratorverse is as amazing as it is. Each chapter reveals or reinforces little quirks about the characters and makes then feel more real. We see how each of the lings or ponies react differently to situations. It also shows more about the world around them and it's why I love your stories so much. All the little details makes this universe so rich with lore.
I love this so fucking much. i am beaming and dancing in my chair at work rn.