Tunnel Rat

Chapter 191: Physics isn't always your friend

Two courageous scouts were bravely going on a dangerous mission. Tweedle and Ringtail had nearly fallen into another of the stupid illusion-covered holes. This one had opened up in one of the tunnels they used to gather mushrooms. Tweedle had been discussing the idea of opening up a stand in the market to sell puffcakes, pointing out the obvious benefit that they would be able to eat all of the tasty food they wanted. And then his next step felt only empty air. As he teetered over the invisible pit, his brother pulled him back to safety.

They carefully marked the pit and went looking for Bleusnout and Old Healer. It was Bleusnout who found the creature responsible in one of his old bestiaries.

"I believe we have a Mossvale Borer beneath the Hollow. The description of the holes and the illusions match the description of the creature's hunting habits. Mossvale was one of the oldest Hollows and nearly had to be abandoned because of these creatures cutting off all of the tunnels leading to them. They are adept at boring long tunnels up to known pathways, covering them with illusions, and then constructing their traps far below. Creatures fall and are stuck in a sticky web made by the creature. They are solitary hunters, but if they live long enough will reproduce, and the young will be moved to a different hunting ground around a Hollow. Each hole may be the lair of a creature. Sadly, the book doesn't detail how they dealt with the infestation."

The brave scouts thought over this information.

"We need a plan."

"A crafty plan."

"Lure the creature out."

"Force it to fight us fairly."

"Except..."

"Except why fight fairly?"

"I've never seen the reason, frankly."

"How does Tallsqueak deal with problems?"

"Well, he kicked Char-char down a hole?"

"So either Char-char ate the Borer or the Borer ate Char-char."

"The cheese fiend version of our dearly missed cousin would be formidable."

"So, she ate the borer."

"One monster dead. We are rapidly getting rid of our problem."

"We are out of disposable cheese fiends, though; I like all of our other fiends."

"Hmm, there is that story about a snake?"

"Yes. I like that story."

"Let us consult an expert."

Finding Boom-Boom, they explained the problem. The dwarven demolitionist looked the two over. "Do you two know the difference between ten fingers and two?"

They looked at their fingers and sadly shook their heads.

Boom-Boom laughed. "The difference is throwing a grenade 1 second too late. Think about that while I show you a few things."

Suitably impressed with the logic and wanting to keep their fingers, the two brave scouts paid attention to what they were shown.

Two days later, a brave explorer approached the hole, whistling a happy tune about picking mushrooms. It was a happy ratkin with a smile on its face. Tweedle was very happy with the smile.

Ringtail disagreed. He whispered to his brother. "It should be fearful. Who smiles when falling into a hole?"

"Maybe he is so happy he likes falling into a hole?"

"I could have saved time using you instead of making a new person."

"True, but then you would have to jump in the next hole yourself."

"This is true. But I insist that if this works, the next one gets a terrified look drawn on its face."

The brave ratkin made of old clothes stuffed with moleskins and fish toppled into the hole. They waited for thirty seconds and were rewarded with an explosion. Fire and dust shot out of the hole as the charge of cataclysmite detonated. Strange fluids and burned tentacles were strewn about the cavern. A gourd with a smiley face drawn on it bounced at Ringtail's feet.

"I take it back, brother. Mr. Happy did a very good job."

The last next hole yielded similar results. For good measure, they also sent Mr. Happy down the hole where Charlotte had fallen. Nothing happened. Encouraged, they got several hundred feet of rope and went exploring. They found the remains of a dead Borer, torn into small pieces and mostly eaten and a long tunnel leading further down. They decided that they had done enough exploring and went back to tell anyone who would listen to their adventures.

They were frequently seen following Boom-Boom around, asking for more training in explosives and begging for small chunks of cataclysmite to experiment with.

Gendifur grudgingly gave Tallsqueak a clean bill of health. "You seem fine now. You have healed all of your major injuries, and your regeneration is back to normal. Which means it's time we had a talk."

Milo and the Master Healer were in a room deep within her clan's burrow, and no one else was around. Milo was curious. "Talk about what?"

She hesitated and seemed a bit unsure of herself. "You know Larry the best. I used to, but that was before he changed, and now he's changed again. I need you to tell me what you think about something."

"Something to do with Larry?"

She nodded. "Larry, Rosie, and Buttercup. The girls adore Larry and want to be with him, but he has been away in Flowertown a lot, and I worry about them when he's gone. Brutus and I have been taking care of them as much as we can. Justin is nearly healed and can help soon. Ringtail and Tweedle are helping, but frankly, if you don't have Stoneclaw blood in your veins, you aren't tough enough to play with them. Tweedle and Ringtail have been good sports about it, but I've had to put them back together each time they play with the twins. I'm worried about them losing arms or legs playing tag or hide and seek."

That made sense to Milo, little girls with the strength of fiends would be tough to play with. But, he wasn't sure what Gendifur was needing to talk to him about. "So, what is it you need from me?"

"I just want to know what you think. Brutus has wanted to get married for a long time. Later today I'm going to go tell him yes. Then Rosie and Buttercup can move in with us. It will be tight, but they need a family to grow up right. They were eight to ten years younger than Larry was when he was turned into a fiend. They need a mother and father. Being an orphan is tough enough without being a fiend as well."

Milo saw the problem. "You don't have room for Larry?" She shook her head. "It will be hard to get the clan to fit the girls in—just not enough spare rooms. Justin sleeps in the guard barracks because of that. That leaves Larry alone again some of the time. I don't think that's good for him."

Milo had noticed how tight some of the tunnels in the clan's burrow were. "With how big some of your clan is, why isn't there more room? Is this part of the problem with combining three clans into one?"

Gendifur grimaced. "Part of the problem is not enough space. Part is inter-clan rivalries. Not everyone wanted the merge, and they could express that feeling by making some of the rooms too small for Stoneclaw. Deathclaw Clan was always difficult to get along with, and Silentclaw had always been mistrusted because of their unique abilities." She gave Tallsqueak a significant look as she said this. Milo was thinking about the problem of space and missed it entirely.

"And I'm guessing there isn't another part of the Hollow with any available room. I don't think moving Rosie and Buttercup into cramped quarters is wise. Sooner or later, something will happen that upsets them if they don't have room to play and move around. And that will lead to really bad things. If there isn't room in the Hollow, then we need to make a bigger Hollow. Why not expand into the outer cavern? Build as big a house as needed, and we can tunnel into the rock behind, giving even more room."

"It would be a good spot to make some quarters for visitors like the Engineers."

Gendifur nodded. "Justin will be happy to move in with us. And that will make Larry happy. He's always been sad that he couldn't live with his brother. Stoneclaw and fiends. We'll make it work."

Milo couldn't see a problem with it. "You and I are only two votes, but I can't imagine anyone having a problem with the plan. The Hollow needs to grow."

He was already starting to plan out the construction in his mind when he thought about her earlier comments. "Oh, but what did you mean about unique abilities? Do you mean all the sneaking and skulking?"

Gendifur shook her head. "No, those are shared with Deathclaw. I'll remind you I'm very good with bloodwork. I recognized the markers that show you are a full-blooded Silentclaw. But that secret stays with me. You saved too many people. I don't want you to have to put up with the old prejudices because you can change into a human."

Milo didn't have much to say. "Uh, thank you. It does come in handy when I go up top and have to deal with them."

Gendifur patted his shoulder. "It's our secret then. And when you do the plans for our new burrow, you're welcome to draw in a room for yourself. Larry would like that."

There was a large crowd around the dueling grounds. Several targets had been set up, replacing those damaged by fireworks. Clan Manticore had done the work, earning them back their lost points.

Professor Tallsqueak was explaining his theories to the crowd of students and professors.

"I've been working with runes and ways to use them to craft and enhance spells. There is a lot of tricky math to do this, which is why I thought to start some classes. Almost all of you have used a rune to make a staff. What I'm doing today is using a combination of runes. If the caster isn't using a physical focus to carve the runes, the spell has to be built from scratch each time with the runes composed of mana drawn by the mage and held firmly in their mind. The first example is a simple spell that uses the Rune of Lightning, modified with dwarven engineering runes to give the spell an area effect."

Milo formed the Lightning Rune in the air in front of him and once it was stable added the engineering runes. Theoretically, the spell should shoot out in front of him and then expand into a globe. He started with only 50 mana to charge the runes. The spell shot out, hit a target, and enveloped it in a sparkly globe that quickly faded leaving the target unharmed. He repeated it for 100 and then 150 mana. Each time the globe grew more intense, and the target took more harm. He was sweating by the time he finished.

"The advantage to learning this type of spell crafting is versatility. I can put more or less mana into the spell. But there are disadvantages. Without the runes being carved into a physical focus such as a skull or a staff they were only a pattern of mana held in place by the willpower of the caster. I'll need a lot of practice to be able to cast the spell easily." His next spell was similar to the fireworks display with an explosion that shot out electrical damage along the ground in a large circle. "This spell is more efficient as long as your targets are on the ground. You aren't wasting mana creating the globe."

The crowd was appreciative and curious. Many of them were interested in experimenting themselves. Mathematics and Physics were going to get more popular. Professor Milo pulled out a wand from his pocket. "Maybe you should all take a good twenty steps back? This is an old wand that I believe will cast an interesting spell, but I'm not totally sure on the specifics of the spell. I've asked miss Gendifur to be here just in case." The crowd went back twenty steps and then even more as Professor Tallsqueak summoned his bone armor in preparation to cast the spell.

Milo took out the old bone wand and focused on the middle target. He fed mana into the wand to trigger its effect. He was totally unprepared for what happened. The wand took power from him far beyond what he had been prepared to feed into it and then pulled power from somewhere else. A glowing pulse of energy a foot thick flashed from the wand. The target was struck by pure force and exploded, sending fine dust and splinters in all directions, along with carving out an impressive blast crater. Milo remembered that every reaction has an opposite and equal reaction. The thought flashed through his head as he became part of the reaction.

Milo was thrown backward at an alarming speed and hit the Tower of Strife hard enough to crack the stones behind him. His armor shattered but absorbed some of the blow. The old wand was driven out of his hand and hit his body hard enough to drive it into him. His unconscious body tumbled forward out of the dent he had put into the tower. Gendifur ran to him and put two syringes of healing potion into him. The Master Healer was astonished that he was alive. She concentrated first on stopping the bleeding from the deep wound in his torso where the wand had impaled him. She could tell he had broken bones and a cracked skull.

"I need a stretcher, splints, and a double dose of sleeping powder. Someone set up a healing potion in an IV drip. We have to put Professor Tallsqueak back together. Again."