Tunnel Rat Chapter 139 Rough Draft (Patreon)

**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 be called Sledgemonkey at the table?"

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'. A lot of them had lost a lot, 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.

Like getting the nickname Sledgemonkey when he was young and like nothing better than swinging a hammer at rocks, rivets, or orcs. He'd gone back to his old name, and sometimes forgot 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 mine 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 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 histroy. 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.

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 bearling. Senior Engineer Milo went and found us a hundred tons of Deep Copper ore. Anyone feel like going for a little visit?"