They're... ON HOLIDAY?

Day 5 - Standard procedure: 7/8

The workshop remains busy, with Trixie measuring and sawing planks of wood using a table saw, 99111 following her every step and watching what she's doing with complete fascination, and 20100 sitting on a chair by the two chemistry tables in the front, staring intensely at a glass bowl with sizzling powder inside it.

*POOF!*

"Eep!" 20100 falls backwards alongside the chair it's been sitting on as the black plume of smoke bursts out of the bowl.

Exactly like when they originally entered the place.

"NO!" Trixie screams with frustration, but has the presence of mind to turn the spinning saw off before darting towards the chemistry table and taking the bowl off, "Damn it! It's ruined again. I told you to watch it!"

20100 sits up on the floor and proudly nods.

"I did! I saw the entire thing," it reports, "First, it started hissing. Next, the center turned black-"

"I told you to tell me when it started sizzling!"

"Umm, you didn't?" 20100 scratches its head, "You just told me to watch it. I'd remember. We have a very good memory."

"Trixie didn't?" taken aback, Trixie returns to her third person reference.

"Nu uh," 99111 shakes its head in support of 20100.

"Are you sure?"

"Mhm!" both drones nod in sync.

"Crap..." Trixie picks the fallen chair up, sits down on it with a long sigh, and buries her face into her hooves, "This was supposed to be the gig that sets me up for years..."

"Umm..." 20100 peeps, raising its foreleg, "Can you please explain what I did wrong? I'll try not to do it again. I don't know all your pony expressions, so maybe I misunderstood something about watching-"

"No..." she moans, adding in a whisper, "Just another small screw up in a life of big one."

"If it's about the dust," 20100 keeps trying, "I can ask 36658 or 65536 to ask Miss Gem if she doesn't have more you can borrow. She's a very nice zebra lady."

"That's not the point," Trixie groans, "I could buy the ingredients to make it myself in the city. It's not particularly difficult, but I don't have any bits because almost everything I had sank with the cruise ship!" gritting her teeth, she stands back up in a way that looks as if she was carrying a heavy weight all over her. Strange, for someone as skinny as her, at least according to the drones, "Get it together, Trixie. This won't be the first time you had to service griffons to earn some cash and it probably won't be the last. Even the pony royals are into some barely legal, kinky shit, and there's a bunch of them here. You just... you just have to... delay the performance, find some make-up to cover the bruises later, the usual. It'll be okay. You haven't starved so far, and this is a long way off from the worst situation you've been in."

"Miss Trixie?" despite her incoherent rambling, 20100 did overhear one critical thing, "Did you say you needed bits?"

Trixie looks at it with mild surprise, as if not expecting the drones to still be there.

"Pony bits, griffon coinage, and time. Unfortunately, To get the former, I need the latter-" her explanation is interrupted by the two drones looking at each other without any audible communication, nodding several times, and smiling, "What are you doing?"

"If you need shinies, 20100 can get you some," 99111 nudges the other grinning drone.

"The Great And Powerful Trixie is listening with extreme suspicion," Trixie raises one skeptical eyebrow.