Tunnel Rat

**PING!**

"YO! Sledgemonkey! You going to answer that damn pingitty-ping or just ignore it for the 3rd time." Two-screws was having a bad time coming up with a winning hand, and that damned sound wasn't helping."

"Huh? Oh, damn, is that me?"

"You see anyone else that would admit to being called Sledgemonkey at the table?" The other engineers laughed at that, and threw more chips into the pot. The game had been going on for three days now, with people leaving when their shifts started and others taking their place. Sledgemonkey, because of his exalted status had been playing cards and drinking beer for most of those three days, conducting any business from the table if he absolutely had to. Most of the engineers that came to him with a question just got waved off, which they gleefully interpreted as “I trust whatever stupid idea you have, go right ahead and do it.”

Sledgemonkey actually blushed a little and tried to turn it into an angry scowl. Truth be told, in the long decades trapped in his own exo-suit, he'd forgotten his own name and just gone by 'The Engineer'. Most of the engineers had lost a lot of themselves, and it wasn't just the lower brethren that had gone crazy. Now that they had a second chance at life, they were all feeling better and remembering things.

He’d totally forgotten getting the nickname Sledgemonkey when he was young and liked nothing better than swinging a hammer at rocks, rivets, or orcs. He'd decided that it was time to go back to his old name. That meant that sometimes it didn’t register when people were yelling at him.

He had a truly terrible hand, and decided to take no cards and just toss money in the pot for some fool to win. "I raise another gold."

**PING!**

"Shit....I'll get it. Blasted newfangled thing. Never should have set the alerts of the Project Scheduling to audible." He brought up the interface to the Deep Rock Engineers Guild and looked through the list of projects. It was a long, long list. Between building an entirely new base in the caverns beneath the old one, they had new mining projects, a collaboration with a scavenger clan, and a wedding to plan. A WEDDING! They'd had to go through a lot of old manuals to find the specs on how to hold one, especially one like this! But that wasn't what was pinging him, so he moved on, gladly not thinking on it.

Next was a list of components to build. It all had to be able to be transported up the new tunnel to Shadow Port. A six-pack of boilers, miles of tubing and ductwork, pistons, engines, armored plating and observation glass. The list went on and on, and not a lot was getting made because they had to rebuild shattered infrastructure and go mining for new raw materials.

For all their partying after the battle, the Snake had really hurt them when they needed it the least. A vast number of crucial systems had been running poorly for decades, and many of the levels of the outpost were dark and without power. Automated repair functions failed to come to life when needed, and defenses that didn't work gave the Snake a chance to destroy whole areas where it would have been shot to hell if the outpost were fully repaired. And, of course, decades of crazy engineers doing whatever they felt like had screwed things up more.

It was decided to move downstairs, and rebuild in the massive cavern that they had drilled into. The explosion had cleared out any wildlife, melted down the snake, and deep-fried the Ever-Pudding. What was left was a huge cavern, with a roof made of the ribs of a gigantic beast dead for tens of millennia. It was a tough beast, the bones and scales that made up its remains were harder than tempered Dark Steel. Senior Engineer Milo had told them some of its history. The huge space would make rebuilding easier, let them expand, and give them the room needed to take on the project they had somehow been talked into.

But they needed raw materials first. Tens of tons of normal steel and dark steel both, and an amount of Deep Copper that made him weep. Even with the amount they mined from the remains of the snake and the newly discovered veins, it would take a couple of years to mine enough for their needs.

Building the Queen had been the stuff of legends and one of the few times Scavenger Clans and Engineers had accomplished something together. (The engineers of Boldavia had been pissed as hell when the Scavengers set sail without paying for the job, but since Boldavia hadn’t been around for three thousand years, he assumed they had gotten over it. Or maybe there were some very bitter dwarven ghosts. Who knows?)

Rebuilding her after she’d travelled down the Gullet and lain at the bottom of the sea for untold years would be just as epic. The Brotherhood had been itching for a project like that. The older and wiser heads knew better and asked for payment up front. They had been dismayed when the leader of the Scavengers, Whale, paid their price in full and then taunted them with more chests of loot. The legends about the treasure on the Queen hadn’t been wrong.

The surprise wedding between the two clans had only cemented the deal. Two weddings, actually. The Scavengers had held their version immediately, drinking Shadowport dry and jumpstarting the economy. The engineering version would take more time. They had to figure out how to do it first. The time in between would just be a long honeymoon for the two lovebirds and a pain in the ass for all involved.

He scrolled down to the raw materials section and saw that someone had found a vein of Deep Copper and reported it. Glory Be! One of the knuckleheads was working...

"Hey, you still in the game Sledge. It's another two gold to you." Well, he was feeling lucky. A job had got done that needed done. He'd celebrate and press his luck. "Yeah, match for two, raise 10." One by one, the other dwarves decided to fold. If sledge was so confident of a hand that he wasn't even watching the betting, that was bad news.

Job #4683-J: Location of Deep Copper Veins. Currently needing 97 tons of additional ore.

Update: Senior Engineer Milo has located in excess of 97 tons of 'snake-free' Deep Copper Ore. Current owners of the mine lack processing for the ore, and are willing to trade for other ores. Recommend a recon team be sent, and plans made to relocate a subragator to the work site.

Mine owners wish to purchase/trade for 4 dozen Dark Steel picks.

Mine owners wish to purchase/trade for 1 ton of copper wire.

Mine owners wish to purchase/trade for 144 magic-tech storage crystals aspected for Storm Mana.

Mine Location: Limburger Hollow.

Additional notes:

Bring Beer. Alcohol is not consumed in any quantity by the local population.

New mycological species have been found, tell Harry I'll send a few back for him.

"Well dip me in green paint and call me an orc! What the hell has that lad been up to?" Milo had left after the fight with the hydra and all the mess with the World Boss, an airship, and a crazy slaver-mage. Sledgemonkey had recognized the signs. He'd seen it in other miners and explorers that enjoyed time away on their own, drifting though the dark caverns without anyone around. Milo had needed some time away from people. Being an Engineer meant being flexible. They knew he'd be back after a bit, ready to hammer steel and bend reality to his will.

"We'll be splitting up your gold if you don't come and rake in your pot! What the hell's up?"

Sledgemonkey sat back down, and casually reached for the pot, making sure not to show the others his busted flush. "Not much, just got a message from our lost little beardling. Senior Engineer Milo hasn’t been loafing around like you slackers. He went and found us a hundred tons of Deep Copper ore. Anyone feel like going for a little visit?"