Tunnel Rat

A twisted and burnt door to a small storage area was being kicked repeatedly from the inside. The sealant on the door’s edge had melted, essentially gluing it shut. After a half-dozen futile kicks, the room’s occupant lost patience. Razor-sharp claws raked along the edge of the metal and shredded the door until he could kick it open. Milo emerged into a disaster. He was glad to have put on his protective gear. The air was smoky and foul, the one working fan having trouble clearing it out. From the half-plugged Bore Hole came a thin stream of smoke.

Milo had waited until the metal of the door could be touched without pain before exiting. His mood matched the air around him: foul and dark. This was his fault. His clever traps had been too clever. He'd been focused on killing the snake, certain that the precautions he’d taken would keep the fires raging down below away from the engineering complex.

He'd been wrong. Now he wondered if anyone had lived. He called out to the room and got a surprising response.

Status: Deep Rock Engineers Guild. Guild master: Milo Tallsqueak

Current Members: 63

Active Members: 1

Inactive Members: 17

Injured and Dying Members: 45

Current jobs: 0

Current unassigned benefits: 1

Milo rushed through the smoke and stopped at the first blackened body that he found. There was just barely a pulse. The dwarf should have been dead of his horrible wounds, but the strong regenerative spell that had kept them going for centuries was still at work. But it wouldn't be enough. They weren't dead, but they wouldn't last for long.

"Show current unassigned benefits."

Current unassigned benefits: Gift from Ooblipimux Your guild's hard work has paid off. Client Ooblipimux is pleased with his delivery and has offered a benefit in appreciation of your labor. As members currently may not select benefits, please select a benefit for your guild from the three options below. All members will receive the same benefit.

1. The client has offered to take all members of the guild into his business. The new joint venture will be called Ooblipimuxboomdwarfrat. (Note: Client's Business is currently closed.)
2. Gain the health care benefits of the client’s business, but delay joining until a later date. (Note: Client’s business is currently closed.)
3. Client offers to teach guild members one of its secret business techniques and/or recipes.

Milo hoped this didn't turn the dwarfs (or him!) into a little pile of pudding. If the second option could boost their existing regeneration, it might save them. If not, all the junior engineers were going to die. And really, in a way, that meant he was just risking himself. He was ok with that.

"The guild accepts option 2. Regeneration/Healthcare. "

You and your guild members have been gifted the skill: Pudding Regeneration.

What are cuts to a pudding? Bleeding will stop faster, and cuts and slashes heal much quicker. Other bodily ailments will also slowly heal as mass is restored to damaged areas. Except for bones. Who needs bones? Not a pudding!

STATUS CHANGE!

Status: Deep Rock Engineers Guild. Guild master: Milo Tallsqueak

Current Members: 63

Active Members: 1

Inactive and recovering Members: 17

Injured and recovering members: 45

Current jobs: 2

Current repairs needed: 92%

Current unassigned benefits: 0

Milo sighed in relief. It looked like it had worked. He pulled back the cuff of his suit and ran a claw down the meaty part of his arm. Blood welled up along the line of the inch-deep cut, then slowly stopped. As he watched, a thin line of white liquid emerged from the wound and slowly changed to normal skin. His arm still hurt when he moved it, and he was missing some health, but the regeneration had certainly worked.

Strange but beneficial? Or scary and ominous? He didn't care at the moment. He may have saved his friends.

But where had the new job come from? "Show current jobs."

Job 1: Snake Clean-Up

Client: Spirit of Altar-Viator

Spirit of Altar-Viator requests that the guild fulfill its obligations to destroy Empress Salasha before she hatches and eats you.

Time until job expires: Momentarily

Momentarily? Shit!

Milo raced to a storage area, shattering the melted handle with his claws, and pulled out a large tarp. He carried it to the shattered exit of the Bore Hole. He paused for a second to pull out his last piece of cheese and swallow it down.

Jumping into the hole, he started sliding downwards, claws leaving deep gouges in the metal, his tail pushing against the far side. What was left of the instant stone was easily destroyed or moved around. The power of the blast had shortened its lifespan considerably, and most of it was missing. What was left turned to powder and barely slowed him if he had to tunnel through. When he was past the stone, he accelerated. It wasn't long before he was running out of shaft. He dug in and brought himself to a halt with only ten feet to spare. Below him was an eerily lit wasteland of charred rock and shiny pools of copper. The largest was directly beneath him. He let go and fell.

He didn't have time to carefully ceiling-crawl to the sides and make his way down. He was taking the express this time. The tarp billowed out behind him as he fell. He'd torn the edges to create long strips and held them in his hands, hoping that his makeshift parachute would slow him down.

It did, but only so much. He landed hard on unyielding metal, his hardened bones absorbing some of the impact and more negated by turning his landing into a roll. It still hurt, but he could move, and his recently enhanced regeneration was dealing with strained tendons. Only slightly injured, he stood up.

He was standing on a hardened pool of copper, all that remained of Salasha, Guardian of the Egg. There was no sign of the pudding or really anything else. There was some light coming from overhead, where he saw that the bones of Altar-Viator were still burning. Chunks of burning bone had fallen, and the coals were lighting up the cavern. Overhead, gleaming scales formed the surface of the huge cave. Freed of centuries of dirt and lichen, the impenetrable hide of the great beast still held strong.

He immediately got to work, using his claws and pickaxe to dig into the copper. Would the egg be in the center? How much of this deep-copper corpse was he going to have to claw through?

The copper was six feet thick. There was no sign of the egg. He was tired as he got down to the bare rock and stopped to eat a piece of cheese.

His pouch was empty. He was out of cheese!

Panic froze him for a few seconds, and in that time, he heard something. Something like a small snake trying to break open its egg!He skulked as quietly as he could, listening from different places, and got an idea of where the sound was coming from. He'd been off by nearly ten feet. He also realized he had approached this all wrong. Haste was making him sloppy.

He laid down on top of where he thought the sound was coming from and tried to sense the egg through the copper, looking for a place that wasn't copper. The pure copper wasn't rock but close. He could feel it as a brighter, lighter substance than the surrounding rock, and in one spot, he felt something different. An egg-shaped spot of living metal.

"Got you now!"

Milo began to cut through the copper again. It wasn't as thick here, and within a half hour, he found it. Pulling the egg free, he suddenly had a conundrum. How to kill the snake? Did he toss it into a volcano? Put it into a subragator? If he just cut into the egg, could he kill the snake? Or would that just hatch it? He saw no cracks in the egg...yet.

As he paused, a small voice came to him.

"Really? You mean like a pet?"

"That would be fun. But I thought you hated me."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Milo shifted the egg to his backpack to free his hands.

"Oh, in just a minute, how about I set you down on the copper floor and then help you hatch?"

“Can I give you a different name? Can I call you Pookeysnakefluffybuns?”

Milo dropped the egg into his storage box and slammed the lid. Trust an eel? Not in a thousand years! He began walking to the wall; it was going to be a long climb to the top.

Long climb? Far worse. By the time he had gotten to the top of the wall where the rock ended and became a curving wall of hardened, gigantic scales, he was shaking with exhaustion. He stopped and rested before going on. The trek across the roof went better. What should have been much harder for him, dangling by his clawed hands and feet like a spider, was actually much easier. The scales were easy for him to grab with his claws, and he didn't slip once.

The Bore Hole was where things got rough. Time and again, he had to stop and rest when his muscles started to shake. He checked all of his pockets for even a crumb of cheese but found nothing. Chewing on some dried meat and fruit helped the ache in his stomach but not the longing in his mind. He dreamed of just buying all of Jethro's cheeses and eating them for a week. Finally, sweating and exhausted, he made it to the top and rolled onto the floor, just one more body in a room of bodies.

An hour later, he knew he had to get up. He had to finish the snake. It wasn't safe to leave it too long. He made his way to the rebuilt subragator and started the engines. The whirling blades that ground down the ore would make short work of the egg. When the blades were at top speed, he summoned his stash and opened it to pull out his ‘pet’.

There was no egg in his stash, but a large coppery python was there to greet him. Milo started to back up, but his shaking legs betrayed him. Which is what saved him from Empress Salasha's first strike. Instead of her fangs sinking into his throat, she shot over his head as he fell backward. He turned his fall into a backward roll and came up into a crouch as the snake pulled herself into a coil and hissed at him.

"Not even for a moment. But I found it interesting you offered. Some hidden desire to be bound to me? Should I get you a nice bone collar to wear? It's not too late to call me 'Master' for 99 years."

Infuriated by his taunting, Salasha struck again, but Milo was ready for her. Both hands, with their powerful bone armor, grabbed at her and held her fangs away from him. The problem was, it wasn’t just the fanged maw he had to worry about. There was another twelve feet of her. She wasn’t huge, only about 4 inches thick, but that was still a lot of snake! Two loops of copper coils wrapped around him and began to squeeze.

Against anyone else, this would have worked. Ribs would have cracked, and organs would be squished like ripe grapes. But Milo's ribs were far stronger now, and the snake couldn't break them. He staggered backward.

"Yeah, I was thinking that myself. It was only a matter of time until I could get you close enough to jam your head in a subragator."

Empress Salasha, the ancient enemy of Alta-Viator, Queen of the Copperheads, and almost a true Eel, met her end in the whirling blades of a rebuilt ore subragator. Milo jammed her head into the whirling blades used to break up the ore. As her head was destroyed into coppery slivers and loud, hissing screams, the rest of her body went limp. Milo tossed all of it into the whirling blades. He gathered all the small pieces as they came out and sent them through twice more for good measure. Then he smelted her down into 140 bars of the finest Deep Copper any engineer had ever seen.

As the pieces of ore melted, a high-pitched scream rose out of the cauldron. Milo was glad he had been thorough. Never trust an Eel is dead until you get the notification.

Huzzah! You have slain Empress Salasha, the ancient enemy of Alta-Viator, Queen of the Copperheads, and almost a true Eel.

Though her body is dead, she challenges you to one last fight. Do you accept her challenge? Y/N?

Above the machinery, he saw the vague outline in the air of an ethereal snake.

Milo looked at the spirit snake and laughed. Then declined the challenge. "I'll leave that to Alta-Viator."

The snake's head turned and only just caught sight of a massive pair of immaterial jaws that snapped down upon her. Three times the jaws chewed her body, and then Alta-Viator's spirit swallowed the Snake Queen whole.

[Well done, little one. Alta-Viator is pleased. I leave for the fires below to reenter the cycle. Enjoy your gifts; they are well-earned.]

The spectral creature dived down into the earth, leaving no sign of its passing. Milo sat down as messages appeared one after the other.

Yellow Trumpet Creeper Colony has been destroyed.

Each member of the Deep Rock Engineers Guild has gained four enhancement points and 500 Boss Experience.

Guild Master Milo has earned a bonus of four enhancement points.

Roobazahl The Ancient has been destroyed.

Each member of the Deep Rock Engineers Guild has gained four enhancement points and 500 Boss experience. Guild Master Milo has earned a bonus of four enhancement points.

Ooblipimux the Ever Pudding has been destroyed. Each member of the Deep Rock Engineers Guild has gained five enhancement points and 1000 Boss Experience.

Guild Master Milo has earned a bonus of five enhancement points.

Guild Master Milo has earned an additional bonus for destroying an ancient enemy.

+ 5 enhancement points +1000 Boss Experience

Salasha, Guardian of the Egg, has been destroyed.

Each member of the Deep Rock Engineers Guild has gained five enhancement points and 2000 Boss Experience.

Guild Master Milo has earned a bonus of five enhancement points.

Guild Master Milo has earned an additional bonus for destroying an ancient enemy.

+ five enhancement points +2000 Boss Experience

You have personally slain Empress Salasha, the ancient enemy of Alta-Viator, Queen of the Copperheads, and almost a true Eel.

You have refused her challenge. (Probably a wise decision; you aren’t looking well, and Alta-Viator has been waiting centuries to kill her again.)

You have pleased Alta-Viator by freeing his spirit and allowing him to destroy his ancient enemy.

You have gained 1,000 experience and twenty-five enhancement points.

You have earned an additional 1,000 Boss Experience and twenty-five enhancement points for killing an Eel.

Each member of The Deep Rock Engineers Guild has earned twenty-five enhancement points and 2000 Boss Experience.

Loot Chests for you and your guild have been placed in this room. Enjoy.

An exhausted and shivering Milo watched as glowing chests appeared. He stumbled towards them and opened them one by one, throwing items into his stash and barely looking at them. He was hoping that his rewards included something special.

Finally, in the last chest, he found his treasure. A huge twenty-five-pound wheel of aged cheddar. He bit into it, swallowing the red wax covering it along with a huge mouthful of the mellow and flavorful cheese. He didn't stop until he had eaten at least three pounds, and the shakes began to leave him.

He sat, holding his precious cheese. Maybe he'd even share some with Boom-Boom....his head snapped up at the thought of the dwarves. "Guild Status"!

Status: Deep Rock Engineers Guild. Guild master: Milo Tallsqueak

Current Members: 63

Active Members: 1

Inactive Members: 17

Injured and Recovering Members: 45

Current jobs: 1

Current repairs needed: 92%

Current unassigned benefits: Each member of the guild, excluding Guild master Milo, has 43 unassigned enhancement points and 6000 unassigned Boss Experience points. (Guild Master Milo has 9000 unassigned Boss Experience and 78 enhancement points.) None of your members are currently able to assign these benefits. Do you wish to assign these benefits to your guild members? Y/N.

Milo was tired, coming down from the effects of withdrawal and fighting off the rush of too much cheese. He set aside the huge wheel and focused his mind on the job at hand. He really had two problems.

The senior engineers would recover once they had power for their suits but were trapped in those things forever. Would the pudding regeneration help with that? They were surely suffering from extreme old age. Some of them might die while waiting for the power broadcasters to be repaired.

The junior engineers had two types of weird regeneration. The first, they couldn't control. What had the Engineer said? They didn't have the mental stats to control the spell. Well, let’s start with that.

"Use 9 points to purchase 3 points of INT for all Junior Engineers."

"Use 9 points to purchase 3 points of WIS for all Junior Engineers."

"Use 9 points to purchase 3 points of CON for all Senior Engineers."

"Show options for spending enhancement points for guild members of Deep Rock Engineers Guild."

This brought up a huge list of skills and options. Some were the same as his own, buying points in stats. Many were engineering skills that could be bought. A few were puzzling.

"What is Toughness?"

Toughness (TOU) is an additional stat only available to the dwarven race. It acts in similar ways to CON, raising health, but also makes the body more resistant to the effects of disease, age, or physical injuries.

"Great. Assign another 9 points to all Engineers for 3 points of Toughness. Please give an explanation of the Enhancement Abilities 'Grey Beard' and 'Ancient Ancestor.'

Both Ancient Ancestor and Greybeard are Enhnacementsonly available to the dwarven race.

Greybeard: Increase Dwarven lifespan by 100%. (Average lifespan of a Greybeard is 400 years.)

Cost: 10 enhancement points

Ancient Ancestor: Some Greybeards live vastly extended lives. They lose some of their physical vigor as they age but have, on average, a lifespan of +1000 years. (Averagelifespan of an Ancient Ancestor is 1400 years, but records have indicated some past the mark of 3000.)

Cost: 15 enhancement points. Prerequisite of the Greybeard skill and lifespan of 300 years.

Wow, that meant you could buy cheese, put it somewhere safe, and come back for it after a hundred years. Or hell, you could even... Milo shook his head and dismissed dreams of cheese factories and warehouses. FOCUS!

"Assign the skills of Greybeard and Ancient Ancestor to any Senior Engineers that lack them."

"Assign experience of all Junior Engineers, except me, to the following skills in order until that individual is at his maximum: Engineering, Mechanic, Metallurgy, Physics, Chemistry, Fluid Systems, Pulley Systems, and Ore processing."

“Assign any additional experience of any Junior Engineer, except me, to any skill using INT or WIS.”

"Increase the cap on the INT statistic for all Junior Engineers by +5"

That was all he could think of. He was too tired. He put the wheel of cheese back into his chest (minus a good-sized chunk that went into his pocket.) and dismissed it. Then he passed out, lying on top of a pile of shiny copper bars.

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