Equestria's Inventor

by Yormsky

Chapter 4: Modernity

Chapter 4: Modernity

“Here we are,” the Changeling leading me said.

“Nice,” I muttered as I passed through the door and found my room to be much larger than I expected. Aside from the sheer volume of the space, I was impressed to find a desk, stool, and bed that I imagined must have been custom-made for someone my size.

“Now, before I take my leave, I’m going to need you to list your dietary requirements,” the changeling said.

“I can eat pretty much whatever so long as it's not poisonous. Humans are omnivores. Though, even though there’s a lot of food we can raw, most of it has to be cooked or prepared for us to digest it properly. So… how is this going to work?”

“Her Majesty instructed me to take care of your needs. Your abilities and potential have been seen fit to appoint you the value of a Commander. As such, I can arrange for you to be brought a feast of cooked meat, fruits, and vegetables every day if you’d like.”

“...That’s cool and all, but could you just set aside my food for me to prepare? Only I know how I like my food prepared and frankly, I doubt you guys would know most of the recipes I’m used to.”

“Done,” the changeling said with the most deadpan stare I’d ever seen. “Now, because us Changelings don’t sustain ourselves with physical food, we don’t have anything prepared right now. So if you could please list off anything you’d like for us to search for.”

“Uh, what? You don’t eat food? What are you, like a plant that photosynthesizes or something?” I asked, more than a little baffled by the casual verbal bomb that had just been dropped.

“No,” he shook his head, “We consume emotions to sustain ourselves.”

When he didn’t further elaborate after a long pause of me just staring dazedly at him, I said, “...I’m just going to ignore the implications of that for now and move on from this line of conversation, but first I need to know: Are you going to try to eat my emotions? And if so is it going to mentally impair me or be painful?”

“No to all of your questions. Your body fundamentally lacks a magical conduit for us to siphon out your emotions for our consumption. It wouldn’t be painful or render you any harm even if we could and at worst, you’d just be left apathetic until you were given more stimulus to feel something again.”

“Anyways…” I followed through with my pledge, “I don’t care what food you get for me so long as it doesn’t come in the form of insects. Oh, and also don’t give me anything that comes from sentient life; I’d rather not have that hanging over my conscience.”

“Anything else?” He asked.

“Yeah, uh… What am allowed to do besides, you know, work and stuff.”

He paused for a moment before saying, “Your status allows you entry to any part of the Colony excluding the Queen’s personal chambers. If your question is regarding whether or not you can leave the Hive proper, the Queen has already declared that you are free to do so.”

“...I’ll have to ask her about that some other time. Right now, I just want to get some sleep,” I said. I hadn’t been able to make sense of the situation since we started this conversation, but I was honestly too tired to try investigating further.

I thought was supposed to be a prisoner or slave of some sort. Instead, I’m being treated like royalty and allowed to go wherever I please. My would-be owners are taking care of my every need and further indulging me by letting me have my pick at whatever I want with no limit yet discovered.

Was Automation really worth all this respect and status?

…

Hours later, after I’d been left alone in my new room, I woke up rejuvenated and entirely unsure as to what I should do first. I was a little hungry, a bit thirsty, I’d sooner rather than later prefer a shower, my clothes could use some washing, there was a lot I wanted to learn about this new world I’d been thrust into… But before all of that, I really needed to use the bathroom.

So I walked outside of my room and walked up to the first Changeling I saw. “Hey, uh…You do guys have any bathrooms in here?” I wouldn’t have asked if I was confident I could make it through the nearly mile-long trek that led to the entrance of the Hive Colony that I was familiar with.

“Of course,” the Changeling said without much fanfare; like, it didn’t care that I was an alien that’d probably never been seen on the planet since I’d been dumped on it. It led me to a room that was marked with a signpost depicting what I can only describe as “a blob.”

Inside the room, I found a few stalls and what looked like a sink… only there wasn’t any plumbing anywhere within the Hive Colony so the sink was filled with a gel-like substance that constantly wiggled and the stall only had a hole in the ground along with a bunch of banana tree leaves - presumably for wiping after one took care of their business.

[Identified Status]
[Level: ???]
[Name: ???]
[Race: Blue Slime
[Class: ???]
[Details: Looks like a stereotypical slime monster one would encounter at the start of a classic RPG. Currently occupies the sink-like appliance within the bathroom. Implicitly, it looks like it’s being used as a substitute for water and soap; you know… for the Changelings to clean their hooves]

[Identified Status]
[Level: ???]
[Name: ???]
[Race: White Slime
[Class: ???]
[Details: A White Clone of the Blue Slime that sits in the sink. This one is being kept in the hole within the bathroom stall. Implicitly, it looks like it’s being used as a decomposition agent to eliminate biological waste products. It would certainly explain why there are no offensive smells nor trace of anything else within the stall.]

For all the confidence I had in my Identify Ability, I wasn’t comfortable with messing around with either of the two Slimes without asking for more information. But, apparently I inferred everything in the bathroom almost perfectly. The only thing the Changeling I asked had to add to my evaluations was that the White Slime was more than just a decomposer and could also digest most plants it came into contact with; ergo, it also ate the used toilet paper substituted.

Anyway, I used the bathroom, cleaned my hands by submerging them for a few seconds in the Blue Slime, and then walked back to my room. There, by my door was a Changling waiting with a cart that was attached to itself. The cart looked to be carrying a massive duffle bag.

As I approached, the Changling called out to me, “I’ll be running a few trips for the next couple of hours to get your room filled with materials for you to start working with. Can you open the door for me?”

As I nodded and held the door open for him to come in, he added, “I plan to also bring in some cooking equipment and food at the very end. If you get hungry or thirsty before then, let me know.”

I thanked the Changeling as I picked up the duffle bag out of the cart and set it aside for him to move on with his next trip. Inside the duffle bag, I Identified a few kilos of familiar herbs and ingredients for that ointment I’d already learned how to make. But in a compartment on the side of the duffle bag, there were also quite a few written recipes for a few more products that I decided to look over while the Changeling continued to fill up my room.

“Potions, Binding Agents, Binding Solvents, Poison Antidotes…” The variety was certainly nothing to sneeze at as I came across everything from building materials to combat stimulants.

As I read through the various recipes I helped the Changeling unload his cart whenever he reappeared in my room. At first, he just brought ingredients and materials for me to work with, but eventually, he started carting in equipment and appliances that looked entirely out of place within the neolithic Hive Colony.

The cutting board, knife, mortar, pestle, and even a furnace I had come to expect. But then I started seeing electric food processors, a microwave, a bunsen burner, and even a goddamn refrigerator!

“Hey, um… Where did you get this kind of tech?” I couldn’t help but ask as a microgram scale was being placed down on my workstation by the Changeling.

“Canterlot. The capital city of Equestria,” the Changeling responded with hardly an ounce of emotion.

“If you guys have access to this kind of equipment why isn’t it more widely used inside the Hive Colony?”

“Most of it isn’t useful for us,” the Changeling gave me a questioning look. “A lot of this stuff is for the betterment of a pony’s quality of life. It would be useful to you because your needs are similar enough to that of a pony’s, but us Changelings don’t really need anything but the equipment to keep us building, infiltrating, and stealing sources of food to expand the hive.”

I didn’t say anything else in retort as I honestly couldn’t say I knew enough about the Changelings to be criticizing their ways. It hadn’t even been a full day since I even discovered they were a thing. For all I knew, they could simply prefer a more tribalistic approach to life. One that didn’t chase after the latest technological advances like those Amish people back on Earth did.

The only thing I was sure of was that I was going to take full advantage of every modern piece of tech I was given. My Class was that of an Inventor; it would be wrong not to, after all.

Comments

[Poparakelis]

He doesn't seem to have much reason to escape for now

[f0st3r21]

Maybe time to consider automating the potion making process so MC doesn’t even have to use the ability Automation…

[SpecHQ]

It'd be cool if he could use automation on Push ups and Sit ups that way he'd get the benefits without having to do much.

[redandready45]

I thought was supposed to be a prisoner or slave of some sort. Instead, I’m being treated like royalty and allowed to go wherever I please. My would-be owners are taking care of my every need and further indulging me by letting me have my pick at whatever I want with no limit yet discovered.

I think it is refreshing to see a Chrysalis who, while still evil, understands that you need carrots as much as sticks to motivate others to work for you and that you can't build thrones in bayonets.

[MurderP0n7]

11694527
How I see it Chrissy was an extremist dictator before the Canterlot debacle, in which she was already at a certain level of lack of sanity without calling her crazy... Going from there with each lost, she fell deeper and deeper into her madness doing reckless things until she was caught... But I would lack information to say with certainty.

[hmaf43]

[Identified Status] [Level: ???] [Name: ???] [Race: Blue Slime [Class: ???] [Details: Looks like a stereotypical slime monster one would encounter at the start of a classic RPG. Currently occupies the sink-like appliance within the bathroom. Implicitly, it looks like it’s being used as a substitute for water and soap; you know… for the Changelings to clean their hooves]

Nooo! Rimuru-sama!

[Numinos]

Hm, kinda interesting to see that his game systems looks like they are just gamefied observations from perspective of our protagonist. Usually they work from some eldritch GM's perspective, which was even hinted at in first chapters.