Tunnel Rat

More reasons to stock up on cheese! He had plenty for now, having bought enough cheese in Shadowport to fill his huge Smuggler’s Stash, but he should really buy a bunch more next trip to make sure he never ran out. Hopefully, mining would go well. The miner’s guild seemed anxious for more deep copper. He could also work on some of the old machinery he'd found and take that apart.

The experience needed for each level was going up by a thousand each time, so while it took six thousand for his first three levels, it would take fifteen thousand for the next two. Monsters got tougher and gave more experience, which compensated somewhat. The problem would be fighting monsters he could handle, and only one or two at a time.

Harry was happy to see him when he arrived. The old troll had plans to expand his farms and build a bigger lab. “I’ve been sitting down here like a mushroom for too long. I need to do something different.”

Milo spent a couple of days with Harry working the mushroom farms and studying mycology. The new glassware got unpacked, shrooms were harvested, and more stories were told. With a good number of potions that would help him resist poison and disease, Milo headed back to his mining area.

As he left Harry's farm and headed off to his camp, he went slow, trying to get a feel for how to use his Stone Sense. It was difficult at the start. He could tell where the rock was with his eyes closed, but that didn't tell him about inconvenient roots or mushrooms he could trip over. Seeing into the rock walls was much tougher. He had to concentrate and sort of push into them to get a feel for what was there and what wasn't. It would be useful for checking an area for ore, but he couldn’t find things just by walking by.

He worked his way through the partially collapsed tunnel on his way to where he'd first met Cronk and found the body of the unfortunate spelunker. He could feel the instability in some areas and see how the cave-in had happened. The stone here was cracked, probably from Cronk throwing fits. He'd have to be careful of such things when he mined. He knew the dwarves didn’t like this area with its constant cave-ins.

The familiar mushroom field was still there, despite the loss of its large guardian. He took some time to harvest the rarer shrooms that Harry said had some medicinal value. He saw a few of the myconid guardians and spent some time baiting them and chopping them up with his machete. One at a time, they were easy, and he needed the practice with small blades. Shadowblight just obliterated them too quickly for him to get in any practice. The weapon’s damage had gone up with his Bonecaster rank increasing.

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Looking into the huge cavern with the giant myconid infested with horrible yellow blossoms sent shivers up his spine. Just looking at the waving flowers made him nervous. The flowers had spread even further across the top of the mushroom man's cap, and it leaned slightly to one side. He and Harry had talked about how to get rid of it but had decided it might just be best to try to seal up the large cavern rather than risk exposure to the mind-enslaving pollen.

Now that he knew what to look for, he could see the long vines that ran from the trunk to mounds in the mushroom field. Each one had a decayed zombie attached to it. He didn't want to be the next victim who got an invitation to stay for eternity. It was a dangerous place if a person wasn’t careful. Even walking around the wall and carefully staying away from the yellow flowers and hidden zombies gave him 25 experience points in Sense Danger. It was an interesting yet poor way to level a skill. There was no reason to ever get close to things that want to enslave you and turn you into a zombie. He turned and headed to the mines as soon as he could.

He had to wonder about that. Was that a death that he could respawn from? Would he have to come back and fight his own dead body? Or did it mean losing his character? He’d rather not find out.

He didn't get right to work in the mines. Instead, he went to the tunnel that led to the big drop where he had killed Cronk. He climbed up the wall of the shaft but not all the way to the top. Halfway up the vertical shaft, he crawled into the small side passage that led to his camp. Nothing had been touched. He doubted that anyone else was anywhere near here, but he was always careful. After hiding in the tunnels of the habitat for two decades, he saw no reason to change his cautious habits.

After he got his small fire started and his fondue pot warming up, he summoned Georgie. He and the lizard enjoyed a meal of stale bread, roasted mushrooms, and gooey melted cheese. It had been hours since he had rested in the game or checked in on Section E, so he combined both with a nap. George gave him a nod as if to say, "Get some shut-eye, boss. I've got this."

Section E was the same as usual. That is to say, just barely functioning. Milo's repairs kept a couple of steps ahead of things, but he really hoped to change that soon. He wanted to put the money he'd gained to good use, but he had to be careful. Checking on his orders and deliveries, he saw that he had six brand new clog eaters waiting for him down in the new warehouse he had set up. Along with them had been delivered a large assortment of belts, circuit boards, power adaptors, and all the other parts that kept his machines running. It was going to be so much nicer to just install new parts and not have to scavenge half-broken machinery from abandoned areas.

Along with the machine parts were a few treats for himself. The medical analysis that the pod had done on him showed a lot of gaps in his diet. He had ordered better food and vitamin supplements to start correcting his shortcomings. And, of course, a nice selection of real cheese. He was excited to see how it compared to cheese in the game.

After spending a few hours getting the clog eaters into the pipes and upgrading a huge water pump with a new control board, he hid the rest of the parts in one of his storage areas. More orders were placed, and then he moved his money around to different accounts. Leaving money in one place too long was how it got stolen. He should know, having stolen quite a bit of it.

There were no emergencies waiting for him, just slowly clogging pipes to send his new machinery to clean out, some electrical circuit boxes that needed replacing before they exploded, and a potentially deadly leak of poisonous gas that he needed to fix. His system had seen the pressure drop slightly and shut down the flow of gas while turning on exhaust fans to draw off and dilute the gas from the leak. Wearing a hazmat suit modified to his size, he patched the gas line and started the flow back up. All in a day’s work. He ate and decided to visit Cichol in the Arcane Library before going to the game. The old mage had interesting stories about the world he was exploring.