Chapter 46: Scavenging

Chapter 46: Scavenging

The tinkling of small bells alerted Milo that he needed to run.

He had learned the hard way, and suffered two more deaths, that escaping the queen of snakes was quite difficult. She knew the tunnels well and didn’t follow directly, looping around through side corridors and filling them with her long body. The first death hadn't cost him anything, but the second had reduced a random skill.

Throw Sharp Things got knocked back down to Level 0. He considered himself lucky to only lose 50 experience.

He had spent time on the various game forums trying to find information. Incredibly to Milo, some gamers had actually died over a dozen times to the same creature just to test out the penalties. Dying several times in a small period of time made the penalties worse. Much worse was dying to the very same creature.

The severity of those penalties went down over time if you were careful and didn't die. There was one entire thread devoted to stories of what some players did while waiting a week in town. Drinking was popular along with training a weapon or learning a trade skill.

Milo didn't want to take time off, so he got careful. He started placing small bells in the different corridors to let him know when the snake was moving. The different tone of the bells even told him where she was. It wasn't a great system, but it helped. Piles of old cans and metal scrap also proved useful.

By the end of two weeks, Milo had the snakes’ movements mapped out, and his early warning system let him get to work. He wasn't mining, for the most part, he was scavenging. The old dwarven mines were a maze of cave-ins and treacherous areas, but they had a treasure Milo needed.

From the pack came murmurs. "nobeard....nonono...nobeard", "tooopretty..tasty", "wharsyorbadge!" Slowly, step by step they edged forward. Milo was seeing a lot of teeth. "Badge? In my pocket. Why don't you fellows just back off and I'll pull it out."

If anything, his voice made things worse. The once-dwarves ran at him, stumbling forward, and raising their weapons. That was enough for Milo, he tossed an explosive skull to the right side of the mob, and dodged to the left. A wrench clipped him on his shoulder but did little damage and he was past the edge of the mob and running. His first spell had done some damage. One body was down, trying to reattatch a leg and others had taken wounds. He waited until the lead ghoul was almost on him and swung hard, putting both spikes into the creature. The lights in its eyes went out and it slumped to the ground.

Milo kept running, circling around them and his pursuers kept nicely bunched up. Another explosive skull took out several, and the remaining two stumbled forward to be taken out quickly.

Now that they weren't moving, he could see that the they were little more than bones and dried sinew wired to whatever mechanical junk seemed to be at hand. Even now, three of them were pulling parts off of others and trying to fix themselves.

A bad feeling made him stand and turn around. From a side passage came more of the once-dwarves. These were in better shape. Most wore partial suits of plate armor. All had beards of burnished copper wire, and the glow in their eyes spoke of intelligence. Seven of them moved forward, their heavy steps clanging as their metal feet came down upon the stone.

Milo readied a skull and prepared to fight.

The lead creature pointed a gauntleted hand at him. "You will come with us to see the engineer, or we will be using you as spare parts. Either choice is fine with us."