They're... ON HOLIDAY?

Day 9 - The Wobbly-leg Frogger: 2/9

99526 waves at a griffon guard perched on the edge of a store overlooking the promenade while walking along the road one level above it. The griffon, clearly positioned so that he can see both the promenade as well as 99526, shuffles out of sight in response and the drone jumps into the nearest bush. There's a plan in place and it must do its part. The moment it's in cover it pulls out a piece of chalk from a leg hole and bends so that it can reach its side with its foreleg. There's a series of large numbers written in white chalk nicely contrasting with the black carapace there, currently reading 10013. It wipes those off, writes down 99526, hides the chalk again, and sneaks along the side of the building down the slope to the promenade level. Pretending to be one of the currently missing drones in a crowd might be risky because, to be honest, 99526 is fully aware that it might forget which one it's pretending to be if it's put on the spot for whatever reason. Drones don't usually think clearly under pressure and, to be honest, props to 99526 for being aware of it.

Moments later, 99526 mixes into the crowd gathering around the Scufflestic match area which seems to have grown considerably within the past fifteen minutes for no discernable reason.

"Gasp! Shinies!" it stops all of a sudden, prompting the griffon walking behind it to trip and steady itself by a quick flap of its wings as they try to avoid it, "Sorry!" the nudge returns 99526 back to reality and it darts between creatures to the side of the promenade where there stands a booth offering sparklers, romane candles, and overall a wide assortment of non-launchable fireworks. It remains standing in front of the booth, simply staring upwards at the counter, or more specifically at the trio of sparklers active above it, with awe, entirely unaware of its immovable position forcing the entire crowd passing by to step over it or go around.

The salesmare, a unicorn because clearly the long-lasting sparklers must be magical, eventually notices the drone and looks down over the counter.

"Hello?" she asks with hesitation, "See anything you like?"

"EVERYTHING!"

"Oh, uh," the mare blinks, taken aback, "Do you want to buy anything specific?"

Those numbers on the side of the booth must mean the amount of shinies to get the... shin- sparklies! Can 20100 help? Ooof, no, too busy. Gotta choose, gotta choose, gotta choose!

"The sparkly sticks! How many can I get for all this?" 99526 doesn't even bother counting, flies up to the counter, and opens any leg holes it can recall in its excitement, shaking off several bit coins of varied denominations.

Despite the unicorn mare being weirded out by the changeling's behavior, it doesn't seem dangerous so her business instinct wins and she swipes the scattered coins and counts them.

"Sixteen sparklers. Do you really want that man-"

"YES!" 99526 beams, floating in the air.

"Your call," she shrugs, "Just break the red tip off when you want to light them up. It's my personal invention that makes it so you don't need a lighter to set them off."

"Yaaaaay!"

***

The situation has escalatored.

65536, with its wings tied by a vine wrapped around its body and forelegs tied together with multiple more vines, is standing on a stump using its hind legs with a noose wrapped around its neck and tied to a branch above. It looks from side to side where 36658 and 10013 are balancing in the same precarious position, waiting for the situation to unfold.

After catching them, the natives ignored anything 65536 said and brought them here, to a torch and totem-surrounded clearing hosting a massive block of stone with markings painted on it situated by a sheer cliffside, where an elderly hippogriff wearing a feather headdress began chanting something as the other natives prepared the drones for hanging on a nearby tree. Many more tribe members arrived to watch the spectacle too.