Tunnel Rat

Cronk started to take a step towards Milo. Milo was calculating his chances.

Assuming Cronk had the same density as normal mushrooms, the cap on his head was at least 600 pounds. Cronk had to weigh more than a ton, and with how tough he looked, maybe two. A punch or kick from him would probably kill Milo outright, or break enough bones he'd wish he was dead. His danger sense was screaming at him, telling him to run fast. Too bad his carefully planned escape route was closed off. Stupid of him to only have one way to flee.

Time seemed to slow, Cronk barely moving...

Through the use of your skill: Danger Sense, and logical thinking, you have assessed a foe and your chances of winning a battle against him.

You have an open tertiary slot, would you like to gain the skill Identify? This will give you basic information on foes near your level, and the threat level of foes above you. Also useful in determining the nature of objects and crafting materials. Y/N?

Yes! Useful skill, how bad was he outclassed?

??????????Cronk, Guardian of the Cave! Elite level 4 Boss

A large myconian guardian. 8' tall, 1 ton+ weight. Seismic stomp attack.

You have less than a .01% chance of defeating this foe in a straight-up fight.

Option 1: Stay in small area to be dug out or buried alive.

Option 2: Trade punches like a real man, and die on first punch. (f)reeweb(n)ovel.com

Option 3: Play 'dodge tank', never get hit, whittle him down bit by bit.

Option 4: Yell "Better part of Valor!!" and run.

Option 4 was the least likely to get him killed. Milo didn't think too hard about the first three. He ran straight at Cronk, and dived between his legs. Cronk’s fist missed him by a foot, but he felt the impact as he rolled forward and sprinted for the other end of the cavern.

At some point he must have stepped on a couple of stemlings. Their piecing screams filled the cavern, and several of the smaller guardians popped up. He got to what he thought was the end of the cavern, and saw it was open on the left-hand side. Down a small incline was a much larger cavern dominated by a gigantic mushroom that grew to the roof. Large vines grew up and around it's stalk, opening into yellow flowers.

Cronk was in pursuit, his thunderous steps shaking the ground. Milo decided to stay far away from the big mushroom and hug the right-hand wall. More stemlings were crushed, and more guardians made chase. Milo had a dozen of them behind him now like a parade. Cronk was at the rear, but the slope down to the bigger cavern gave him some extra speed.

Milo saw an outcropping on the wall! A ledge three feet high jutted out from the wall. Worked stone and timbers showed an opening like a mineshaft. A quick look showed a tunnel running away into the darkness. Milo took a chance and ran in. The smaller guardians couldn't navigate the ledge. Their stubby legs didn't jump well. Cronk barely slowed. He plowed into the doorway, knocking out a support and shrugging off a couple of small rocks that hit his shoulder. And then the chase was on down the long straight corridor.

Milo passed side tunnels but they were boarded up. He couldn't afford to stop and pry the boards loose with Cronk right behind him. He kept running. After nearly 200 feet the tunnel ended in a vertical shaft. It was the only way to go. Milo leaped and grabbed a crossbeam, pulled himself up, and kept climbing. If this led to a cross tunnel, he was safe! No way Cronk could climb this.

Cronk tried anyway. He was a very determined guardian. After tearing down several chunks of wood and some stone, he stopped trying and stomped the ground. Dirt and stone rattled down and Milo was nearly dislodged off the wall. The idiot mushroom was going to bring the cavern down on both of them! Milo kept climbing, looking for an escape route.

He was five stories up when he ran out of shaft. The vertical shaft ended at the stubs of a horizontal shaft. On one side was a twenty-foot by twenty-foot room with a large rusting machine, mostly disassembled bits scattered all over. On the other side was a 40-foot-long tunnel ending in a very solid looking cave-in. This passage had tracks going down the center, and a minecart loaded with rocks.

Milo immediately got the idea of pushing the loaded cart down onto Cronk. This wasn't going to happen, the wheels were rusty, and the cart heavy. It would take more than a small wererat with 0 STR to shift it. Well, if not the cart, what about one rock at a time? He hefted a large rock, probably about 20 pounds and dropped it. It hit Cronk on the head, making a dent and bouncing off. The enraged myconian stomped hard, dislodging dust and loose rock, and nearly tumbled Milo into the shaft. Milo doubted he could kill the monster shroom even with 100 rocks, and the mine wasn't going to take a lot more before it collapsed and killed him.

He started cataloging the machinery on the other side. It soon became apparent that it was some type of mechanical hoist used for lifting entire minecarts up the shaft. The cart on the other side had heavy brace across its mid-point where a hook on the end of a cable could be secured. Sure enough, in the back other area, underneath an ancient, rotting tarp with hundreds of feet of cable. Each cable was made of many strands of a fine wire. Milo had no idea what the metal was. The 1" cables were as easy to bend as normal rope, but had to be much stronger.

There were also a number of pulleys, and double pulleys that looked like they had been put together to raise things up while the mechanical engine was being repaired. Try as he could, he couldn't figure out what powered it, and he had no idea on how to repair it. Some of the linkages looked like real world mechanics, but a lot of things looked more like some sort of magical engineering system. He wanted to know more.

But first he had to deal with an overgrown fungus. He went back to the first plan of dropping a cart of rocks on it. Over the next few hours, he repaired and set up the pulley system so that he would be able to drag the cart back to the edge of the shaft. Then he'd need to hook it up to the overhead system, lift it up off the tracks, and drag it into position. Cronk seemed to have settled down to a half-hearted stomp every hour or so.

One of the problems he ran into was the length of the cables. He didn't need several hundred feet, but he had no way to cut them. Best he could do was coil up all the unused length into a large pile. When he finally had the system set up, he got to work. Instead of trying to move the cart 40 feet with one Milo-power, he would use the pulleys to do the equivalent work of moving 320 feet of rope with 8 Milo-power. Each heave ho on the cable moved the cart barely an inch, but the important thing was that it moved.

The cart was about two feet from the edge when Cronk once again got bored and stomped on the ground. Milo exertions and Cronk’s stomps had slowly loosened a certain rock near the edge. Milo was pushing against the rock for leverage when Cronk sent a small shockwave up. The combination was enough to send the rock down into the shaft, and Milo onto his belly. The 50-pound rock hit Cronk on his cap and sunk in deep, doing some damage. Enraged, the monster stomped again, looking up at the violator of the cave. He added another couple of stomps for emphasis.

Several things happened, starting with the whole shaft groaning ominously. Next, the large coil of cable started to slide towards the edge. Milo had just staggered up and tried to stop the cable by stepping on it. This just ensured that his foot was in a loop of cable as it went over the side, jerking him off his feet and dragging Milo along with it. Milo found himself hanging by one foot about half-way down the shaft.

The angry mushroom man looked up at Milo and their eyes met. Cronk smiled as he went to grab the cable. Milo just managed to get his foot out of the loop before the line went taunt and Cronk heaved. Milo held on for dear life as Cronk jerked and pulled on the rope trying to dislodge him. Milo didn't like this at all, and when he got the chance, he leapt to the side of the shaft when a large boulder offered a decent hand hold. Looking down at Cronk, he saw the myconid guardian was no longer pulling on the cable. It had gone slack.

Cronk had managed to pull the ore cart to the edge and then pull it in. The cable fell and pooled in loops around Cronk's legs as a couple tons of steel cart and rock sped towards it. Milo hugged the side of the shaft and felt the ore car just miss him. He wasn't in the clear though, the rock he was on shifted a foot, nearly coming loose from the wall, and pitched him into the shaft.

From below, he heard a huge bellow of pain and the strange sound of something heavy hitting something much softer, somewhere between a 'splat' and a 'sploosh'. A large mass of smushed shroom parts spattered against him in mid-air, and a second later he landed feet first on something soft and spongey that didn't quite break his fall. The air was full of mushroom spores and he was splattered in the gooey remains of the Cave Guardian. He staggered a bit away from the impact site and started cleaning himself off.

Congratulations! You have singlehandedly slain Cronk, Guardian of the Cave by cheating with physics!

For slaying Cronk, Guardian of the Cave, a level 4 Elite boss. The normal reward of 10 Core Skill Points is increased to 15 since you accomplished this without the help of a group.

You have earned 500 Boss experience. Boss experience may be divided as you wish between the skills used to kill the creature. An equal number of experience will be applied to the stat associated with the skills chosen.

Skills used: Mechanic, Fleet of Foot, Acrobatics, Climbing.

The following core skill lists are available to you: Generic, Scout, Racial.

The Myconid Collective has taken notice of your actions. Your status has been updated from annoying to minor threat.

Just to be on the safe side, Milo downed half the tonic hairy had given him. He was a bit light headed after that fight and had inhaled a lot of spores. He searched the area where Cronk and the ore car had met up. Rocks and ore were scattered everywhere, but some of it was still in the cart. Three large fist sized chunks caught his eye. One was steel colored and looked to be solid metal, the other two a ruddy red-gold. There was also a mining pick that had been covered by the ore. The pick would come in handy, the ore he tossed into his backpack. freewe(b)novel.c(o)m

He kicked through Cronk’s remains in the off chance the big shroom had some type of treasure, but all he found was a strange ball of vegetable matter, heavy and shiny. It identified as "Earthen Heartshroom". That also went into his pack. He was too tired to continue. Time to log out and see what was going on in Section E and maybe look at the forums some. Getting back to Harry could wait for a bit.

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