Tunnel Rat

Milo caught glimpses of the battle. He saw Squint diving from high in the air and stabbing furiously until his weapons broke and a glancing blow sent him flying back through the air where his cats grabbed him and dragged him to the healers. Brother Ignatius was walking with the Choir, following the fight and spreading their magical aura to reach as many people fighting the monster as they could. Captain Pike stood on a rocky outcropping, throwing his harpoon again and again, tearing off huge sheets of rocky armor, but failing to damage the crystalline core. The raid was holding its own, just barely, but not stopping the monster. A long line of headstones showed where each defender had gone down. They needed that bomb, and soon.

He ran back to where Boom-Boom was working enthusiastically with another dwarf, Pillbug. Pillbug was another of the zombie dwarves restored to life. He didn't talk much, just nodded as Boom-Boom asked for tools and explosives. Or argued with Boom-Boom by crossing his arms and refusing to hand him something. Pillbug was happy to not be a rotting, mechanical corpse. He had no intention of cutting his new lease on life short just to see what happened when you mixed liquid cataclysmite with nitro-boom.

A circle of dwarves watched on from a safe distance as Boom-Boom and Pillbug worked on the bomb. To Milo, it looked like a metal chest with two handles and a clock. Boom-Boom looked upon it and saw the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. A true work of art crafted from whatever materials he had on hand, and a hundred pounds of cataclysmite with a few 'special extra bits'. The only thing more beautiful was going to be seeing it explode!

"I hope this boss is as tough as you say it is, Milo. Because if something doesn't absorb and reflect the force of this blast, we'll bring the city down on top of us without having to wait for the beastie to do its seismic dance!"

Milo assured him not to worry about that detail. "It's tough. Insanely tough. No one is even scratching the surface. That looks too big for me to carry on my own. We need to make a sled with low-friction bearings or maybe a motorized cart for me to drive. Who's helping me with that?"

Boom-Boom and Pillbug stood between Milo and the bomb, crossed their arms looking grim and dour. Pillbug's silent scowl of disapproval made Milo take a step back. "Sorry to disappoint you, Senior Engineer Milo, but no one's helping you, because you aren't packing it. You got to have all the fun playing with your Snake and blowing everything to smithereens while poor Pillbug and I barely had the brain cells to appreciate that explosion. But not this time. You're going to let someone else have a turn. Just go sit your scrawny little butt over there by Harry and take a nap. I'll even be nice and tell you that he's been experimenting with making cheese and there's some in his pouch." Pillbug pointed at the troll.

Once again, Milo found himself amazed at the dwarven mindset and switched his thinking around. He shook each junior engineer's hands and apologized for intruding on their project. They smiled and got back to work trying to get every erg of explosive energy out of their contraption.

Milo felt the hole in his stomach get larger. "Cheese, you say? It has been a long time since lunch." The dwarves laughed as he scampered off quickly and started going through Harry's pockets. He found some tasteless, stringy balls of what could technically be called cheese, thanked the sleeping troll, and climbed on top of the excavator to get a good view of the fireworks.

Two people were already up there: The Chief Engineer, and Shift-stick. The latter had both arms in slings and a splint on his lower left leg, but didn't look like he was about to die. Milo was thankful for that.

"Ah, I see you took some time out of your busy day to come tell me about our new recruits. Apprentice Shift-stick just made it back to us, limping along in the shadows. He shows good perseverance, although I'll question his common sense if he's hanging around you a lot."

The Chief was using his no-nonsense voice, but his eyes were glittering. "But I suppose it's not a bad idea to be filling out our ranks with some new blood. I've seen that young runner moving all over the cavern carrying messages. A good catch, that one. Enthusiastic. And Shift-Stick here seems to have survived working with you. We all know how dangerous that can be."

Milo pointed to Shift-Stick. "He saved my life. I would have been a goner if he hadn't dragged me out of range and taken that hit. The only way to save his life was to make him an apprentice engineer and give him the health benefits the Guild has to offer."

The Chief nodded and put a hand on Shift-Stick's shoulder. "That speaks well of you. We'll make a place for you. Just don't get too near Milo or his plans until you heal up."

Shift-Stick wilted, then looked up at the two of them. "One good deed doesn't even the books. Let's get this over with and I'll be on my way. I'm not a good guy. They call me Shifty for a reason. My clan disowned me. You'll be told all about that soon enough and want to kick me out as well. I'd rather do it now than later."

The Chief chuckled. "Oh, you think you need to be a saint to be an engineer? We'll have to educate you on all the adventures of some of the brothers during their pre-engineer days. Quite a few colorful stories. There are reasons why a lot of us go deep and join a crazed group of spanner-happy idiots. I don't care about what a bunch of sun lovers have to say about someone, you're an engineering apprentice now. I approve of Milo's choice. But I understand that it was a surprise to wake up and find out you'd joined us. If you don't want it? Fine. Walk off. I won't keep a man who doesn't want to hammer metal and bend reality. But if you stay, we'll take you."

Shift-Stick was silent for a few seconds. "Screw it then, I'm in."

"That's the spirit." The Chief Engineer slapped him on the back with a metal-clad hand, which sent shockwaves of pain through all of the injured dwarf's fractures. "Now pay close attention, the boys are about to light the big critter up. Those are two are the biggest Boom-Happy idiots out of this bunch, and that is saying one hell of a lot."

Pillbug and Boom-Boom were moving up to the fight, judging the distance to the World Boss and when to begin their last charge to plant the bomb. Vary was running from group to group warning them of the upcoming explosion. The Choir pulled back, split into two groups, and started singing chants of protection and luck. Many bottles of wine were opened.

Squint ran forward and began juggling knives in front of Uthneragrubban while his cats wound in and out of the creature’s legs trying to make it stumble. Pike ignored the warning, attacking again and again. As Uthneragrubban took a step forward, it left a wide gap between two of her legs. The demolition team used that to sneak under her wide belly and start attaching their bomb directly to the monster’s underarmor.

Uthneragrubban ignored everything and swallowed the last of the current mouthful of stone. There was no loose rock in front of it. The monster's eyes glowed, as did one leg that planted itself deep in the ground. Other legs started doing the same. Pillbug noticed the light coming from cracks in the stony armor, slapped Boom-Boom in the head, and pointed to the encircling legs that had nearly trapped them. Before Boom-Boom could reply or move, the bomb's timer activated!

"Dammit Pillbug! You didn't take into account the beastie's energies in the trigger design! Guess I should be thankful for front-row seats. Going to be one hell of a BOOM!"

Pillbug rolled his eyes, took his spanner, and whacked the back of Boom-Boom's magi-tech armor. Boom-Boom had never been good with making things that didn't explode so Pillbug had made both of their sets of armor and incorporated safety features he'd been dreaming of for decades as his brain had slowly rotted. His nickname came from his love of overlapping concentric plates and hundreds of drawings of steam-powered armored insects.

Boom-Boom yelped as his knees buckled, he was forced to bend over and hug his bent legs. Armored plates shifted, overlapped, and snapped into place, turning him into an armored ball. As soon as Pillbug saw that the armor was working correctly, he activated his own defensive mechanism. As Uthneragrubban prepared to shake the earth, the bomb's timer ran out. The two dwarves inside their metal spheres waited with the joy of a three-year-old at Christmas time.

The bomb went off first.

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And as Boom-Boom had predicted, if there hadn't been a world boss to soak up the damage, it would have brought the roof of the cavern down for a half mile in all directions. Uthneragrubban was lifted off the ground and two dwarven demolitionists went for the ride of a lifetime. They were shot like balls from a cannon, careening off of rock formations, and bouncing across the cavern. Milo and The Chief Engineer tracked their trajectories and extrapolated their final landing zone. Vary was sent with a team to track them down and see if anyone was left inside the metal shells.

Uthneragrubban was kicked twenty feet into the air, slamming into the ceiling hard, shattering her top armor. All of the stone armor on her legs, belly, and chest was demolished by the bomb, along with a good amount on other parts of her body. Energies sprayed from her legs to the ground. If any adventurers had been nearby, they would have been killed by either the explosion or the seismic energies. Captain Pike nearly died. He sailed through the air over a hundred feet and landed near the excavator. His harpoon went skittering across the ground, coming to a stop in front of the dwarves.

Throttlecog remarked. "Now I've seen it all. A flying ogre." That started some of the younger dwarves discussing the viability of attaching wings and tails to ogres and launching them from cannons. "They'd be handy for getting inside a castle under siege."

Everyone held their breath as Uthneragrubban crashed to the ground. She lay in a mound of loose rubble, unmoving.

Cheers rang out and adventurers looked around for loot chests to appear. Milo held his breath.

Uthneragrubban stood up, lightning racing back and forth inside its crystalline body. The great head bent down and took a large bite of shattered stone at its feet, then another. Stone began to form on its legs and it took a step towards the city.

The Chief Engineer watched in disbelief as the massive crystalline creature began moving towards Shadowport. "Damn it. Nothing should survive a blast like that. Anything bigger and we do the monster’s work for it. Not that we have any explosives left."

Milo was running scenario after scenario through his head. "Could the drill on the excavator hurt it?"

The Chief shook his head. "Doubtful, not made for it. It chews up rock and earth, but it doesn't have a tip that will penetrate a hard material like that. And that thing would tear it apart in less than a minute."

Milo looked at Harry, who was awake after such a huge noise. The troll turned to him. "I know what you are thinking. But I’m not a fighter. I'm large, and strong, but I'm not on that level. And I can't dodge. It will hit me every time it attacks. At best I can be a distraction. Which I'm quite willing to do for you, by the way. But I can't hurt that creature."

Ideas chased themselves through Milo's head, endless scenarios coming to bad ends. At his feet, Shift-Stick spoke up.

"I noticed something odd when the bomb went off."

Milo thought back to the explosion, but he'd been worried about Boom-Boom and had followed his bouncing trajectory, instead of watching the boss. Milo squatted next to him. "Odd can be good, what did you see?"

"It always plants its legs in the stone before each blast, and lights up all over its body. The energy must run down the legs into the ground. But when you blew her up in the air, the energy tried to arc to the ground. It didn't do much of anything at all. And the legs farther in the air did nothing."

"That's It!!" Milo hugged Shift-Stick, who winced in pain, and then he turned to The Chief Engineer. "We can't win a war. It's too tough to fight But we can turn this into an engineering project. We just need to get the boss suspended in mid-air. She won't be able to feed or use her seismic attack."

The old dwarf pondered this. "Ok, then tell me your plan, because I don't see a Centrifugal Lifting Arc appearing out of nowhere."

Milo grabbed a pencil from one of The Engineer's pockets and began to sketch out his idea on the side of the excavator. "We need cables, the toughest we can get, a few small explosives, quite some pulley systems, stone anchors, a dozen engineers, a few large distractions, and a way to attach the primary cable to the boss at the center of gravity so the main cable can lift into the air and she can't swing about to loosen the attachment."

Moving slowly, and lighting his pipe, The Chief Engineer looked at the plans as if he was grading a final paper from a junior engineer. "It might work. I have to ask where you plan on getting a mile of high-quality cable, and all the rest of the gear. It's one thing to have an idea, Senior Engineer Milo, but you also have to source the materials."

Milo's face fell. "Oh. I don't suppose you brought any of that in the excavator?"

The Chief Engineer shook his head. "Nope. Only room for the lads and I, and a bit of explosives that Boom-Boom smuggled along with him. But, now that I think about it, it might be time to teach you whipper snappers a lesson or two." He yelled to the rest of the crew. Gather round." The dwarfs gathered around him, including Vary, Boom Boom, and Pillbug. The latter two missing their armor, which had to be dismantled to get them out of it.

"Watch and learn, young ones. Watch and learn. Some of you may live long enough to get one of these."

He raised his fist in the air, and it glowed as he summoned power before slamming it down on the ground. With a sharp crackle and the smell of ozone, a huge set of adamantine doors appeared in front of the astonished crew. They were ancient and strong, covered in strange runes and inlaid with mathematical equations. A full ten feet high and ten feet wide, to Milo they looked like the doors on an ancient, magical, bank vault. Or to an Arcane Library.

Throttlecog whistled softly, then swore in seven languages. "Well slap my bare ass and call my mama a goblin! An Arcane Workshop? You kept that secret all this time?!! "

"You're just jealous. But truth be told, I couldn't remember how to summon it for the last hundred years, and didn't have the mana to do it if I did remember."

He turned to the awestruck dwarves.

"All right you lot! Behave yourselves or I'll have you cleaning out the sumps for the rest of the decade. Glassine cables are in storeroom #6. The pulley systems are in storeroom #9. Throttlecog, run along with the lads, and take Milo shopping for what he needs, and not one copper rivet more. And I'll want an accounting of what leaves later along with a full set of blueprints for the project! I'm going to want to test our new apprentices on part of this scheme."

The doors opened silently, and blue-tinged light poured out. The dwarves were uncharacteristically quiet and solemn as they entered the Arcane Workshop and began to haul out the needed mechanical supplies.

Uncaring and unknowing of what he was missing, Captain Pike woke up and found his harpoon. Milo took a long look at the weapon and crossed off the last item on his parts list. "Vary? I've got some jobs for you."

Belinda heard cries of despair from her raid. One voice proclaimed. "Well, that's it then. It's over."

The healer moved among the players before they could leave or log out. "It might look bad guys, but we can't give up now. This is the first World Boss ever. How can we not fight until the bitter end? This could be epic!"

One of the mages shook his head. "War's over. The dwarves dropped the big one. The boss doesn't care." Nods and agreement came from several other players.

She turned to Brother Ignatius. "Sing something upbeat and hopeful, please." He smiled and nodded. This young lady understood his goddess well. As legend had it, she had sung beautifully even as she was tied to the stake and the fires had been lit. He and his choir would follow her example.

"Ok girls, on my mark. Let's sing: 'It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine'.

She pointed to one of the tanks. "Hey, Arno, lift me to your shoulders!" The grinning fighter obliged immediately.

The healer yelled as loud as she could. The ring on her finger glowed, amplifying her voice and giving it a tone of authority. "Nothing’s over until we say it's over! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? HELL NO!"

"This could be the best day of our lives, but you're going to let it be our worst. I can hear you all talking. 'But Belinda, we might all die! Oh no, we might lose all our spiffy gear or get a nasty curse if we lose to the boss.'

"Screw it. This might look like a stupidly suicidal mission, but I say we're just the people to do it!

Vary came running up behind her and whispered. "Milo has a new plan to beat the boss"

"And Milo has a new plan to beat the boss. So, who's with me?"

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