Tunnel Rat

Milo had an excellent understanding of what projectile weapons could do. Many dwarves were fascinated with them and would spend hours sipping beer and talking about their ideas for hand cannons and larger weapons while they tinkered with other projects. Some, like Boom-Boom, skipped the guns and went to the heart of the matter by focusing on more powerful explosives. Milo had the needed knowledge of physics and ballistics and could calculate the math in seconds. The math wasn't looking good as far as he was concerned.

From the sound, rate of fire, and how the large caliber rounds had quickly destroyed the stone walls, Milo knew that the miners had nothing that could stand up to the weapon. The dwarven chain gun mounted on the back of that mechanical walker wasn't up to the standards of the Engineers, but it was still a fearsome weapon.

Shields and armor would be shredded, and makeshift barricades would be useless. So as the shots were fired into the crumbling wall, he timed a running leap and ran up the shaking stone until he got to the ceiling and could grab a stalactite. It was hazy at the top of the cavern. The fires from the burning lamp oil filled the area where Milo hid and made breathing difficult. He took shallow breaths and used his hood as a filter.

Below him, he saw the miners dropping back and taking positions behind the second set of much thicker walls.

The first stone wall thrown up by the earth mages shattered into rubble, and the remaining giant spiders quickly picked their way over the pile of stone, surrounded by hundreds of spiderlings. Behind them came the Iron Spider. The heavily armored behemoth paused at the rubble and, deciding against trying to climb over the remains of the wall, began to move around the pile.

Even through the smoke, Milo could tell the leg assemblies were crap. They didn't match and had no synchronicity. He couldn't tell if a clumsy spider was under the armor or just a poorly made machine. Why go to the trouble of making something if it wouldn't work correctly? He'd have been annoyed at the thing even if it weren't shooting at his friends.

The twin-linked dwarven chain gun was pintle-mounted on the back of the spider. Only one gun was revolving. There was a goblin acting as a gunner. Milo watched as it loaded up another belt of ammunition and prepared to fire again. He shook his head at the lack of a proper auto-loading device.

Milo moved across the ceiling, trying to catch up with them. He had thought he would have a few seconds to spare while the gun tried to destroy the much thicker wall the miners were deployed behind. But instead of shooting toward the miners behind the thick stone wall, the gunner started strafing back and forth across the makeshift barriers with non-combatants hiding behind them. Milo heard cries of pain and screams.

The Iron Spider yelled at her gunner. "Idiot! Why are you wasting ammo on worthless targets?! We need to outflank that wall and destroy the remaining warriors." She continued her slow trudge toward the wall.

Grobit chewed on the remains of his cigar and sent a few more shots into the women and children. "Well, there's nothing else to shoot at right now, and I'm bored. The non-combatants give crap for experience. Those folks over there aren't worth a lot, but a goblin needs to get his experience where he can. I only need a little more, and I can move up to level ...urk...."

The Iron Spider was confused. 'Urk' wasn't a word she knew the meaning of. Grobit used a lot of words that he claimed were in other languages. The goblin would have said more, but a piece of jagged bone was sticking out of his eye socket and another from his chest. Milo dropped onto the Iron Spiders’ back and swung Shadowblight with both hands. The spikes on the weapon went in one side of the goblin's head and out the other. Milo kicked the body to free his weapon. Her mechanic's dead body slid off the spider's back, and she stepped on it without noticing it.

Milo grabbed the handles of the gun. It seemed simple enough. The Iron Spider was turning towards the side of the ratkins’ wall just as her six remaining troops started scaling it. The first spider to the top was met with a hail of bullets as Milo fired the chain gun. It fell more than leaped at the ratkin miners, and Milo kept the stream of bullets flowing, hosing down spider after spider. Green gore and spider guts sprayed the top of the wall. The miners heard the sound of the guns and saw the spiders at the top of the barricade exploding into gore. They backed further away to avoid the rain of foul-smelling ichor.

Within a minute, all of the giant spiders were dead. Milo strafed back and forth across the horde of spiderlings, each shot pulping a half dozen of the dinner plate-sized spiders. Without their larger cousins around, the mob retreated to the caverns, scattering into side tunnels and crevices.

Milo's mechanical ride was not happy. "What are you doing!?!! Witless mammal! Traitorous piece of trash! Those were my loyal warriors! They loved me! Now I will have to kill all of these rats by myself."

Milo was wondering what the foot-pedals and levels did. The spider was slow, and he had plenty of time to start experimenting. As the Iron Spider advanced on the miners, and the miners wisely fled, he started pulling levers and testing each control. One lever unlocked the foot pedals, which controlled the direction in which the legs would move the spider. For a few minutes, Milo and the Spider fought over who got to move the legs until he found the override for her control. The dwarves who had built her robotic body didn't like constantly telling the stupid spider when to move or where to go. They would take over and drive her like a walking tank in the middle of a battle.

He quickly got the hang of it. Standing still, the spider stopped—lean forward, and the spider advanced. Leaning back was reverse, and two opposed directions could spin it on the spot. It was rather like driving a clunky tank with uneven tracks.

The spider hated being driven. She'd demanded that Grobit take apart those controls and leave her in control. Unknown to her, Grobit liked having an ace in the hole if she decided she didn't need him. The controls had stayed. Once again, the mighty Iron Spider found herself turned into just a passenger. Milo brought the spider to a halt and locked the controls, leaving her immobile. He jumped down and ran to where the miners were assisting the wounded.

Clawhammer was trying to assist one of the healers with a wounded child. Milo nodded at him and started pulling healing potions from the caverns out of the storage in his ring. "Use these; they should be very potent."

The chaingun had killed only two people, but several were wounded. With bandages, spells, and potions, everyone worked to stabilize the wounded and stop the bleeding. Two people had shattered bones, which Milo could put back together, while a healer saw to torn muscles and sinew.

With that done, Master Clawhammer pulled Master Tallsqueak aside. "Nice work doing whatever you did. But what the hell is going on? And what is that thing?"

Milo didn't know more than the obvious. "Those are spider warriors, but only two were noble and weren't very large. Much smaller than the ones I fought before. Under all that, metal is a huge Noble, but it's primarily mechanical. Do spiders turn their wounded into walking tanks?"

"I killed the gunner and then turned the chain gun on the spiders rushing to fight you. It's a dwarven gun, but not well made. One side needs to be fixed or it would have fired twice as fast. I don't know how the spiders fit in, but it must be part of what is happening. Too much happening at once."

Clawhammer nodded as he looked at the horror standing still in the middle of the cave. "Someone has given most of the Hollow bad cheese, and now a spider attack. That smells bad."

Milo explained what he had found out. "Rifkin is behind the cheese. He's been meeting with the merchants in the caravan. And the caravan brought Cheese Fiends with them. Why would anyone bring fiends to another hollow?"

Clawhammer smacked one big fist into his palm, angry. "Fiends? There's a reason, but not a good one. Larry's an exception. He didn't change in the middle of a battle; he just wanted to 'get big' like his brother and fight more. He could never tell us more than that after the change. We never found out how he got too much all cheese. But other fiends are bred for battle and live for it. A caravan wouldn't bring fiends, they eat too much and need constant attention. Fiends were never used except in the largest battles."

Milo ran through scenarios in his head; it seemed obvious in retrospect. "Charlotte and Riftkin wanted to take over the Hollow. They poisoned Smiley and Bleusnout so Riftkin could give bad cheese to the Hollow, making it easy for the caravan guards to take over. Charlotte attacked me and told me part of it before I...before I killed her. The rest I learned from my very excellent scouts who have been following Rifkin. The spiders must be somehow working for Rifkin or were a diversion."

"Things make more sense, what do we do you think we should do now? "

Clawhammer looked around. He had some miners who could fight a little and some wounded he needed to protect. He could fight, but he wasn't a warrior. Tallsqueak was young, but Gilad spoke highly of him, he was a mage, and he'd killed more spiders than the rest. "I'm leaving that up to you. You know more about what's happening than I do, and you have scouts finding out more. If anyone asks, you have my support. I advise finding Gilad and gathering all the fighters and mages we can. There will be another fight coming."

"I'm going to see if I can bring down the main tunnel and fortify this area. Nothing will be able to come through the mines until we clear out those tunnels. Send people this way if they need shelter. We'll hold the front entrance to the mines. If need be, we can send to other Hollow's for help, and try to make a last stand in here."

Milo handed the master miner his pick. "This will help. It's made of a Tier 4 crystal that can cut through rock like butter."

Clawhammer felt the tip and tested it on the floor. "Damn, where did you get this?"

Milo shrugged. "Reward for killing a World Boss. Long story. I'm going to take my spider and make sure the warriors from the caravan can't get into the hollow. It's a narrow passage and this ugly gun is the equal in firepower to an Engineer's rivet gun."

Clawhammer watched as Tallsqueak ran back to the mechanical spider, adjusted the controls, and tightened some bolts. Then with the sound of screeching metal, they began strolling down the corridor to the Hollow. Before they could go far, the master miner sent two whelps running ahead of them, spreading the word so that no one had a heart attack when they saw him coming.

The spider constantly complained to Milo in her screetching voice until he found the switch that turned off the speaker she talked through. He had some thinking to do and needed to do it fast.