Tunnel Rat

Chapter 229: Guard Duty

Four hours later, Milo had successfully navigated the maze of mine tunnels and finally found the staircase that led up to the Hollow. Georgie had been a huge help, constantly running to find a way forward, or more often, a tunnel that led to a dead end, saving Milo countless steps. His pet looked tired, and not just from the exercise. His scales were dull, and he was constantly panting. Milo set up his camp, and Georgie barked three times at him, then curled up and went to sleep. Milo made a cup of tea and dismissed his camp, along with his pet. This was the first time Georgie had ever stayed after the camp was recalled to his ring, so Milo could only guess, but it seemed likely his pet could only stay for a short time. He could test it later, but for now, he would let his lizard rest as he climbed back up to the Hollow.

He felt a dull burn in his legs when he finally reached the top and unlocked the door. Another mystery: Which had come first? The stairs or the door? Had the Hollow found a deep crevice and put the door there to keep monsters out? Or had it been in response to a stairway being constructed that led to the hidden tunnels? He might never know. There were still many caverns to explore, but he had a hard time believing anyone would stay in the mining complex if they weren't forced to. He left thinking about those mysteries until his next visit and focused on getting home and taking a nap without being surprised by the girls.

He made his way to the exit in Larry's House. Things looked different now, with Larry moving all of his favorite things to the new house. But a new picture was on the wall. It showed Larry and all of his family together and a map of where to find the new house. At the bottom, it said, 'Larry has a new house and a new family. Please visit.'

From there, he stopped for a meal in the mess hall and found Gilad, Bleusnout, Clawhammer, and Vilma, the newly appointed Master Miner. Smiley waved him to sit down and brought him a double dinner. "Eat up; you're losing weight." Milo took his advice as he appraised the Masters and former Masters of what he had found a mile beneath the Hollow. When he was done, Vilma asked to see the ore he had. She examined the chips carefully and made notes in a small ledger.

"We haven't encountered these minerals anywhere in our mines, but it's known that the deeper caves have harder stone and rare minerals. One of my books mentions Silverite as a high-conductivity metal, but I've not heard of the other metal, this Duram Argenti. That translates to 'Hard Silver.' Interesting that it uses Old Speech. It's a dead language found in ancient books. Halfling scholars prefer it for classifying their herbs, and elven authors prefer it for their cross-species romance novels."

Milo could read Latin, and many of the 'Old Language' words seemed similar. He found it interesting that it was in use in Genesis. "I will be traveling to Shadowport soon, then down to the Engineering Outpost. They may know more. The caves are a long way down and can be dangerous, but they could be a benefit the Hollow if we can safely mine their resources. I'll find out more." He got up to leave, but Gilad put a hand on his arm.

"If you are traveling to Shadowport, you need to know about a situation that has arisen. More players have found the Hollow. A large group visited yesterday, but some of them became belligerent and argued with the others. Seven of them attacked the five who were peacefully trading with us. Two of the seven perished, but their opponents were slain. It happened outside of Limburger Hollow, and we only know of it since those five players chose to make camp in the outer caves and quickly walked out of Hade's realm. They tried to reason with their one-time allies but reported to us that they were being 'Corpse Camped.' An interesting term. If you travel that way, you should have no trouble skulking past them." The old warrior sighed and looked at the others at the table. "I was convinced not to take some of my best students and deal with them myself."

Bleusnout snorted and then laughed. "You've been riled up since that fight with Gangrene."

Gilad flexed his claws and sighed. "It would have been an epic battle to fight him, but the tides of war swept us apart, and Tallsqueak received the honor. I don't begrudge him the honor of his victory." Milo bowed his head humbly, thinking he would gladly have let Gilad have that fight. That mace had nearly pulped his brains with only a glancing hit.

"I'll be sneaky and get past them. Humans see poorly in the tunnels, even with torches." He stood up. "I'll be leaving soon and will be gone at least a week or two. When I return, I'll lead a party down to the cavern, and we can search it and decide if it is worth mining there." He waved to Smiley and anyone else in the room and headed home.

He saw five nearly-naked players sitting around a campfire in the outer cave. He recognized Frostyone and Elvarion. They'd fought together against Bone Crusher, in the mines. Both were missing most of their gear, although Gorbel had the heavy shield he'd won in the fight. They seemed in good spirits, planning on spending a few days in the Hollow doing small gathering quests and hoping the group killing people in the caves outside the Hollow got bored. Milo left them to their conversation; they didn't know him with fur and a tail.

As he walked into his home, the sounds of battle filled the air from the playroom, the clang of weapons hitting armor telling him the girls were still having fun with the weapons and armor from the ring. Gendifur was tending to Brutus, who was lying on his couch, bruised and battered. He seemed to be enjoying her fussing over him. Gendifur smiled at him as he walked in, and Milo could tell she was tired. "Thank the gods. The girls are over-excited, and we're having trouble calming them down. Can you go throw explosives at them or do something to wear them out so I can put them down for a nap? I really don't care what you do or how hard you play with them."

Milo was tired himself, but he wasn't injured. Brutus and Gendifur were exhausted. "Sure, I have an idea."

Gendifur collapsed into a chair. Brutus smiled at her, "Still up for a dozen more?" She glared at him and then smiled happily. "Yes."

When Milo walked into the playroom, he saw the girls had put on bits of plate armor and helmets and were chasing each other around with two-handed swords. They squealed when they saw him and charged. Trying to get their attention proved fruitless, but they were clumsy in the heavy armor, so he dodged their huge swings and tripped them with his tail. They finally listened to him after they'd been tripped a half-dozen times each. "I have a new game to play called Guard Duty."

Rosie narrowed her eyes at him. "Like Daddy does? Daddy says it's boring!"

Tallsqueak rolled his eyes. "That's because Daddy does it right and proper. We get to do things my way."

Buttercup asked, "What other games can we play?"

"It's either Guard Duty or Dodge the Exploding Skulls." They considered the choice and chose guard duty.

He explained the rules. "You have to dress up with as much armor as possible, and then we'll go on patrol to defend the Hollow." He helped them with the armor, strapping on the pieces that fit them. Soon, two armored 'guards' with shields, maces, and huge swords followed Milo out of the house to march around the cavern. The girls were clumsy in the armor, and it was heavy. As he had hoped, they were calming down as they got tired. Unfortunately, their Fiendish Metabolism regenerated stamina very quickly. Just marching wasn't going to be enough.

After ten minutes, Buttercup said, "This is a poopy game. I don't like it." Rosie agreed.

Tallsqueak smiled at them. "That's because we're only at the start! Now that we know the Hollow is safe, we can scout for bad people."

Buttercup pointed at the humans. "Like them? They aren't doing anything bad." Rosie had a thought, "What if we chased them?"

"That's rule 1: You can't attack people until they attack you first! It's a very important rule."

"What's rule 2?"

"Rule 2 is guards use their weapons, not their claws, and always walk on two feet, not four." Tallsqueak also had a new weapon. He had borrowed one of Justin's spare polearms and was wearing a helmet from the hoard that fell out of the general's ring.

They began marching noisily out of the cavern. The girls had difficulty moving in the armor and sometimes tripped, despite their weasel slippers. Milo decided to try something different. He started humming a catchy tune and doing the Happy Hamster Hop as he moved through the caverns. The girls squealed and started dancing as well. Marching was boring; dancing was fun.

Five adventurers sat a few hundred yards away, telling stories and playing cards. "How long are we going to wait here?"

The large barbarian, Rogarth, took a deep breath and counted to ten. "Same answer as last time, Willy, until we get the loot. We kill those feebs anytime they try to loot their stuff from the tombstones and kill anyone else that wanders down this way. And hopefully, if we keep killing the giant moles in that cave, the boss will spawn, and we will get some points. Until then, we can play cards and raise our Gambling skills." Willy nodded like he had the last six times he'd asked that question. He was annoying, but they kept the half-orc assassin around because he was hell on wheels in a fight. If only he would work on something other than skills that gave him DEX, CON, STR, or AGI. He was tough and quick but also impatient and not really smart. He claimed that was his half-orc heritage, but no one believed him.

There were two orcish wizards in Shadowport who were awesome team players and good strategists. Rogarth had tried to recruit them, but Chauncey and Skullcarver had shaken his hand and left after one dungeon, claiming Willy had driven them insane. If Willy weren't his boss's kid, Rogarth would boot his butt from the group. He might have to, anyway. And there were always other jobs. Willy was just that bad.

"I can't believe the other guys didn't back us up when the rats tried to throw us out! We brought them some good stuff, and they got all huffy about it!" Willy had packed fifty pounds of cheese from Shadowport to Limburger Hollow, intending to make a profit.

"Willy, they told you the rules. You sell cheese to the Master Merchant. They caught you trying to sell cheese directly like you were dealing drugs!"

Willy laughed. "That's what it is to them! I sold 37 little packets of parmesan in ten minutes before they got all upset about it. I'm just a businessman providing a product. There's no rules against that!"

"Except for the rules they have posted on the big sign as you enter. The warning about contraband cheese is at the top."

"That's a rat rule, not a people rule. Willy only rolls with people rules."

"Fine, Willy. New people rule: Shut the hell up and deal the cards."

From down the pathway to the rat village, they heard noise, the unmistakable clank of heavy armor as someone tried to run. "Up and at 'em, boys. We have company."

Willy drew two jagged knives. "Awesome. I'm going to kill someone and eat their liver in front of them. Watch me." He faded into the darkness as three figures spun and hopped closer to them, clanking loudly as they came.