They're... ON HOLIDAY?

Day 3 - Storm: 5/11

"Who in Tartarus forgot to cover this properly?" asks an irritated voice, waking 99380 up. A moment later, the wardrobe door opens, revealing a pegasus bartender staring in disbelief at the bleary face of 99380, "AAH?!" he jumps backwards, fanning 99380 with a gust of wind from his wings, "What are you doing here? Which one are you, I mean?"

"99380, Mister bartender," the top half of the drone's head peeks out of the basket, ears splayed back and listening, "Is the rumbling and flashing over?" it asks carefully.

As on cue, the world turns white and 99380 slinks back on the bottom of the basket again. The following thunder, however, is delayed and weak. The hive mind catches on, meaning someone with the knowledge of what's going on is nearby, and shares the basics of some relevant concepts:

> Storm, lightning, thunder, rain.

With a sigh, the bartender turns off the radio which is now transmitting only static, and quickly nods his head sideways.

"I can't let you stay in the wardrobe. How did you even get here?"

"I woke up, everything was moving when before it wasn't, there was flashing and loud noises, and I got spooked. I went looking for 10013 who is a very smart drone and in charge of us, and I could sense it being upstairs. When I got here, everything was even louder, flashier, and blowier, so much so that I couldn't stay on my hooves. I almost drowned like 99111, but then I climbed out of the pool and I saw this place and all I wanted was to hide. So I climbed in here and turned the radio on so that it was talking and then making music," 99380 hangs its head, "Sorry," it realizes the radio wasn't talking anymore before the bartender turned it off, "Did I break it?"

The pegasus shakes his head.

"If the water got into the wiring there wouldn't even be static. No, at this time we should be too far from Equestria to catch the Maretime Bay station. In fact, I'm pretty sure that with some gentle work I could catch some griffon station, even though the storm sent us a little off course."

"Oh no," 99380 covers its mouth with its hooves.

"It's fine. All that means is that we should be docking in the Ataraki resort tonight rather than late afternoon."

The word 'Ataraki' remains unexplained and untranslated in 99380's mind.

"What does that Ataraki word mean?"

The bartender snickers.

"It's just a name. The island is home to a native tribe -a mix of griffons, ponies, and the resulting hippogriffs, surprisingly- and the word in their language means something along the lines of breath of brimstone or ash or... something," he shrugs, "The resort has a whole bunch of pamphlets about the whole thing, plus guided tours. There's an inactive volcano in the center of the island, so that's where the name came from."

"Oooooh," 99380's eyes go wide, contrasting the bright teal with the darkness of the basket.

"Now, get out of there," the bartender nods sideways again, "The storm is supposed to get worse again later and I can't risk anything getting waterlogged. It's a bit of a miracle nothing went wrong when you got inside."

Crawling out of the basket and overturning it in the process, 99380 rolls out of the wardrobe. Once the bartender fastens all the tarps and covers everything properly, he turns to leave, only to find patiently waiting 99380 still sitting on the floor and looking at the deck still being whipped with rain from behind the counter. It's much better than earlier, but still...

"Uh, do you want me to escort you back down?"

99380 reaches out to mentally touch 10013 who seems to be resting and at peace. Come to think of it, the weak presence of Smiley's mind is in the same direction as well.