Oops!: 2
“Are you okay, buddy?” asks 65536 after a couple minutes of walking through the tunnels. The direction doesn’t matter as long as it’s away from their encounter with the high ranks.
“...n- no…” whimpers 99200 quietly.
“Is it about the dead high rank? If anyone asks, send them to me and I’ll explain-”
“No, I…” 99200 looks at 65536 with a strangely familiar, helpless and puzzled expression, “Did 415 want to kill me? Why?”
“Ah…” now 65536 identifies it. The faces of newly hatched drones seeing their first summary execution and not understanding that the hive isn’t one entity with a common goal and friendly, cooperating factions, “How much do you know about the old rules?”
“Not much,” admits 99200, audibly shaken, “10k told us some stories about High Score but those were mostly about it becoming friends with rank 1988 and some surface ponies…”
“Then I won’t tell you more. 10k has its reasons to pick what it shares with you newbies. All I’m going to say is that you need to remember that almost all current high ranks, if not all of them, did live under the old rules when drones were… easily replaceable, and it might take more time for them to adapt.”
I’m being extremely generous here.
“Oh…” the diplomatic approach doesn’t seem to put 99200 at ease whatsoever, and the duo walk in silence, still led by 65536.
Eventually, the guard drone gets an idea.
Luna and the guys did their best to keep me active after Mister Sharp died. Pretty sure this is different, but if today’s newbie drones believe that all high ranks are at least their allies, a callous threat like that must have hit deep.
“99200, you said there was a safe ravine nearby that you camped in too, right? Wanna stay there tonight- this sleepy time, I mean? If there are spinner webs, I can show you a neat trick.”
“Okay…” mumbles 99200 but a spark of interest creeps into its voice, “I’ll mark it on the map.”
“Hm, that is pretty close. Lead the way, buddy.”
The two drones take the quickest way two levels up and leave the winding tunnels behind them as the road ahead opens into a ledge of a massive ravine.
99200’s description did NOT do this place justice.
For someone drone-sized, the ledge is more like a road, roughly twice the width of the tunnels rebuilt in the new, safe way. What 65536 notices first, though, is the significant drop in temperature. It looks upwards and listens. 99200 notices and repeats:
“This place should be safe. We’ll find some broken eggs further along the ledge but the spinners are all gone as I said.”
“That’s not it. I can hear the wind and the air is much fresher here,” 65536 shakes its head and points up, “Does this go all the way to the surface? I can’t see any light but it’s night so that doesn’t mean much.”
“I don’t know,” 99200 shakes its head, “If you try to fly up you’ll get tangled by the webs even if they’re not sticky anymore. They’re everywhere.”
“I see,” 65536 grabs a nearby pebble and throws it down into the depths. When that fails to produce any sound, probably because of getting caught on a random web, it checks the hive map, only to find that the area is unmapped. The general shape hints at them likely far from the bottom, though, “How far are we from your local hideout?”
“Almost there,” replies 99200, “It’s behind some old spinner eggs where the ledge widens a bit more.”
In just a couple moments, the drones reach the spot and 99200 starts clearing out a pile of spider eggs, each of the drone’s own size. Its fearlessness emboldens 65536 who reflexively stands guard for a few seconds, and when it hears no movement in response to the crunching and shoving noises it goes on to help, quickly revealing the now familiar gravel-like section of the otherwise rocky wall.
“I really wasn’t expecting it to be so cold here,” comments 65536 again.
“It’ll be much better once we dig out our hole,” says 99200, “Do you want to practice my digging method again?”
“No, I think I’ve got the hang of it and I’ll get enough practice at home. Expand the burrow for the two of us, please, and I’ll fly up to gather some webs.”
“Sure.”
65536 carefully floats up and over the vast emptiness of the ravine, and quickly spots the absolutely gargantuan sheets of webbing crossing the whole area. A careful poke reveals them to be dry and completely devoid of the terrifying sticky coating that used to so often spell doom for unlucky drones.
These must be a lot stronger than I thought to support the weight across such a wide place. If the spiders regularly live here throughout the warmer parts of the year it could be a fantastic place to get renewable resources, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
An idea comes to mind.
“Hey, 99200,” 65536 calls out into the darkness, “Did you notice any moss around?”
“What’s that?” responds the drone’s echoing voice.
“A green plant that grows on rocks. Very soft. Or anything similar.”
“I didn’t look for anything like that around here, but I think there’s something similar on the ledges somewhere. I’m done with the burrow, so I can go look.”
“Please do, and poke my hive link every minute,” 65536 slips into guard habits.
“Sure, why?”
“It’s a security measure. If you don’t poke me in time I’ll know something happened to you and I’ll go look immediately. And if I don’t respond to your poke you should be suspicious that something happened to me.”
“Hey, that’s smart!” 99200’s voice cheers up with the joy of learning something new.
The following couple of minutes are spent in busy silence as 65536 grows a scalpel-like spike out of its hoof and uses it to channel its digging power to cut the webs with precision. Luckily, there’s no one to see this and realize how utterly horrifying the potential consequences of casually and accurately using a power that can effortlessly cut through any magical and physical protection alike could be, and call for immediate military annihilation of the hive before the use becomes widespread. It takes some care and experimentation, but eventually 65536 learns how to cut the enormous web without it dropping and taking the drone down with it, and roughly ten minutes later it returns with the final of several rolls of webbing on its back, and unloads it on the pile of the others.
“99200, how are things on your end? I’m done with gathering,” it calls out into the darkness in the direction from which it can sense the survivalist’s hive link.
“I’ve got a little bit… of something…” replies the explorer, “I’ll bring it over.”
Its hoofsteps return to their camping spot quickly, and 99200 presents several clumps of grey, vaguely plant matter. 65536 experimentally pokes it and shrugs.
“I have no clue if this will work, but it seems kind of wet so it might. Now let’s sit down and watch.”
Both drones do so, and 65536 starts working. First, it produces some goop which it mixes with the weird moss, forming a hoof-sized pot that’s wider on the bottom than on top. Next, it lines the inner wall with the gravel left over from 99200’s digging, forming sort of an inside crust insulating the goop-plant matter from the inside. Step three consists of packing the remaining space with the webbing so tightly that only a narrow hole remains in the center. Finally, a green pulse signals a hoof transformation, although 99200 doesn’t know what changed, and 65536 grinds off some grey dust from the hooves into the hole before another visually indistinguishable. fiery change.
“I’m watching but not really understanding anything,” 99200 tilts its head.
“Almost there, buddy. It’ll all become clear in a moment,” 65536 smacks its hooves together right above the pot so hard that sparks fly out. To 99200’s surprise, the center of the rolled-up mix flashes and starts burning.
“Ah, you made a shiny?!” 99200 immediately leans as close to the top of the pot as it can, “What’s going on? Why is it flashing? What’s the smell? It’s warm! OW, too warm! Bad shiny!” 99200 quickly withdraws its muzzle that it experimentally put directly over the makeshift candle, “Can shiny be bad? Is it bad because I’m a bad drone?”
Oh… I completely forgot. With the exception of the few who happened to get outside the hive, they have no idea what fire is.
“That’s called a fire. It makes heat and light but eats the material you give it.”
“Will it be friendly if I feed it like you did?” 99200 glances sideways at the sheets of webbing.
“It’s not alive, it’s just a… process,” 65536 tries to explain something it, admittedly, doesn’t exactly understand either, “Almost all things can be set on fire, but sometimes it’s really difficult.”
“Oh,” the explorer accepts it without hesitation. Drones are good at accepting stuff that just is, “So it’s a way to make light and heat without using up love?”
“Yup,” 65536 nods, “This winter is so bad that when I arrived the first thing I wanted was a hot bath but then I realized you guys don’t have heat or water here.”
“We do have water,” counters 99200, “There’s a stream in section -qqer-ss-d-77- and 99856 sometimes brings water for its experiments from there. I went there once and the water was super cold even though it wasn’t freezy time. It’s kinda dangerous there too, I think. I heard weird noises from all over the place. Do ponies have warm streams where you live?”
“Mhm,” 65536 nods, “It starts off cold too, but ponies make the water flow to their houses,” it links up tighter with 99200 so that it doesn’t have to explain every basic concept with words, “There they heat it up, mostly using fire, and then they swim in it or wash off all the grime that’s left on them after the day. They can’t just burn most of it away with shapeshifting like we do, but I learned there’s a lot of fine powder left on us after that too, we just don’t notice and trail it everywhere. Canterlot cleaning staff weren’t happy with me until I realized that's what was making a mess everywhere.”
“Having warm water sounds nice,” 99200 lies down on its belly, holding the sides of the ‘candle’ with its hooves, watching the small flame dance, and warming its muzzle up, this time without shoving it straight above the fire and scorching its carapace.
“It’s not the only way to warm up-”
“I know. Hug piles are the best!” 99200 beams at 65536.
“There are other ways, pony ways,” 65536 winks, “There are other things you can cover with that are not drones.”
“Ohhh, like 57999’s armor, right? I tried to trade a lot of stuff for it but it said the Queen told it to keep those hard leg thingies no matter what.”
“Close, but not what I meant,” 65536 rubs its head, “Or maybe you can think of it as armor against cold.”
“I could sure use some of that now,” 99200 nods, “Well, your little fire shiny is making things a lot better, now that I know it burning me doesn’t mean the shiny thinks I’m a bad drone.”
“Heh. Not all shinies come from the great shiny. I’ll teach you how to make fire later, but we still have the cold armor thing,” 65536 grabs more webs from the pile, “That’s where these come in.”
“Do we light them on fire all around us?” 99200 hazards a guess.
“That would work, but we’re going to use those webs for something more lasting,” 65536 shakes its head, “Watch carefully.”
The Nightguard drone grows a hoof spike once again, but this time it simply pokes a set of holes along one side of a web sheet. Then it takes a second sheet and tightly rolls it up into a primitive twine, which it pulls through each of the holes and ties a knot on each end. In the end, nothing is particularly tight due to the strength limitations of the webbing, but 65536 happily shows 99200 the makeshift cloak before modelling it.
“There you go,” 65536 gives it to 99200, “It’s your early present for Hard Swarming.”
“For… me…?” the skinnier explorer takes it and mimics the way 65536 put it on and tightened the neck rope before, “Woooow…”
“I can show you a useful design or two that you can make on the spot-”
“I’ve got nothing to trade for it,” says 99200 quietly, puzzled by the new development.
“You don’t need to, it's Hard Swarming,” 65536 pats the other drone’s head with a smile, “It’s just a present from me, that’s all.”
“Wooooow…”
“The fire’s going out, so I’ll make one more cloak for myself and you can practice sewing for yourself a bit before we go to sleep.”
“Wooow…” 99200’s mouth slowly creeps into an ear-to-ear smile, “I’ll be able to make stuff… out of nothing?”
“You still need raw materials, buddy,” 65536 corrects it.
“...out of nothing…” repeats 99200, its voice distant, “This is the best sleepy time ever…”
65536 shakes its head and gets ready to teach.
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Mr narrator there was no update on your condition! How are you! We are all worried.
The following couple of minutes are spent in busy silence as 65536 grows a scalpel-like spike out of its hoof and uses it to channel its digging power to cut the webs with precision
Your Move, Kreep.
Universe has a weird sense of cheap programming. Just as I got to the bit about Fire, the radio quiz show played a sound clip from Firestarter by The Prodigy as part of a question.
I really hope Drone doesnt confuse Cloak with Candles. Its gonna keep them warm, but only for the rest of their life.
11753735
Not much to add after my blog where I said they are finally sending me home. The first checkup yielded just more antibiotics. I'm constantly exhausted but at least I managed to finally go to work today. I'm healing suspiciously slowly and I have another check-up tomorrow. It sucks, but anything more I can say would just be whining. I'm choosing to believe it's a process rather than that there are some more problems afoot.
11753777
- The goopinator.
- More points for the simulation theory.
- Eeeh, chitin isn't that flammable. If they added goop, though, situation might... develop.
Now I wonder about Flame resistent goop..
Goop fabric should be essy to Do on the other side...and will get Rarity an heart attack. Changeling Dresses in snot Green and ichior yellow
11753950
At least, it is progress in the right direction! Hope you'll be well again soon!
And I just love those drones! Reading about them almost feels like a soothing balm...
Despite it obviously making perfect sense for it in this scenario, given who it's interacting with this chapter, it's a little strange seeing 65536 so consistently be the voice of wisdom and experience like this, since, you know, in the past it was more usually either the direct reverse or knowledgeable for a drone but clearly still not the most knowledgeable one in the room.
It's a good strange though. It's just shows how much these drones have grown and developed since we were first introduced to them.
11754056
- Well, 10k has fire dousing foam goop, so it's not so farfetched.
- So far, goop is more usable in the form of soft or hard bricks rather than something as flexible as fabric, but maybe one day there will be the right Rarity drone.
11754312
- I was at the edge of a cliff, but I did a three-sixty and courageously stepped forward!
- This was supposed to be an action adventure story, and yet here we are again, just messing around.
11754367
It's still a drone, a bit silly and everything, but it's also a cop who deals with ponies on daily basis as well as in dreams, as Night Hunter said. And let's assume Equestrian guard training isn't just weapons, but psychology, de-escalation, law. 65536 is hiding its power level so that it can talk to hive drones and them to understand.
11754569
Now I'm picturing a drone going about the usual day-to-day drone business whilst talking with the usual Rarity-mannerisms.
11754579
Leggy spinners, daaaah-ling! The WORST. POSSIBLE. THINGS.
11754709
Yes! Exactly like that!
11754709
Why do I have the feeling, that Changeling-Rarity would end up in the recycler? No matter the new rules?
11755956
And the best kept drone secret would be that it wasn't the Queen who threw it in there, but 10k.