Tunnel Rat

Milo woke up with his lungs screaming at him as his last tank of air gave out. It didn't help that he was being crushed under hundreds of pounds of gold and barely able to move. After a moment of terror, he pushed down the panic. This was a game, and as real as it felt, he wouldn't really die, it would just feel like it. But worse, he'd certainly fail in his plan to foil the sharks, leave an incriminating headstone, and lose some of his favorite magical items.

The gold was the immediate problem. It was crushing down on him, the heavy ingots on top of the coins that had cascaded in an avalanche. He hadn't expected the foot-thick vault door to open so quickly and had underestimated the force that the 'mace' could produce. Casting a spell felt impossible. His tail was crushed beneath him, one arm was totally immobile against his side, and he didn't know where the Mace of Armageddon was. The other arm was stretched out away from him and experimenting showed he could wiggle his fingers. He might be able to manage one rune, but that was it. A Rune of Force was the obvious choice, to blast upward and away from him and shift the gold. But there were problems with that. His hand would take an opposite and equal force blast, most likely doing enough damage that he couldn't cast again. The explosion might not even be enough to shift the gold and the force would rebound back on him.

He needed both the Rune of Force and the Rune of the Void to move the gold safely. As time slowed, he frantically ran through scenarios, stubbornly ignoring the Bad Idea Department of his brain that was once again trying to get his attention. But time was running out, and the worst that could happen was he died quicker. He shifted his hand to make a small pocket of space and brought out the cataclysmite in his ring. The chunk of rubbery explosives would certainly move the gold, but also scatter his limbs all over the walls. He needed less Boom. One claw carefully cut off a fraction of the slab and he managed to put the larger piece back into the ring. Hurriedly he got his hand under the explosives, wiggling and shifting the chunk up and putting a layer of coins between his hand and the explosives. He split his mind in two, one half working with his wiggling fingers to manifest the largest Rune of the Void he could manage, and then detonated the cataclysmite with the spark cantrip he'd learned from Arlothe.

The resulting explosion in such an enclosed space and underwater shattered both eardrums, but did have the desired effect of blasting away some of the gold above him, leaving his hand and arm free. All of him was aching. With more ability to move, he felt above him, finding the pile precariously balanced. Any sudden movements would cause more gold to pour down onto his freed arm.

There was nothing to do but repeat the experiment. This time he could place the explosives better, hoping to move the pile off to the side. He'd survived the first blast, so he made the next one bigger. When it detonated, the Rune of the Void absorbed most of the force that would have hit him, and as the pile was blasted one way, his body was shifted the other way, temporarily freeing him. He kept rolling, slowed by the water, and got out of the way as the coins rolled back down to where he had been.

Lunging upward, he found the pocket of air in the corner of the ceiling and gulped it into his lungs, doing nothing but breathing deeply until the panic subsided. Then he looked at his situation. There was far more gold here than he could take in his chest, which he could barely see. A corner stuck out from under the pile. It was certainly filled, so he dismissed it before moving to look into the vault. Inside he found something more valuable than gold: more air. He got to the large pocket and took another breath.

He'd solved one problem but had another. Getting out would be difficult with all the gold in the way. He'd have to try and clear a path. From his Scout Master ring, he took Ore Gathering bags and began filling them with heavy ingots. Even though each one held four times its capacity, they barely made a dent in the pile. He could dig for a few minutes while holding his breath and then needed to go back for more air.

It was time for a break. He needed a healing potion and a piece of cheese to help him think. Leaning back against the wall and slowly chewing a chunk of aged parmesan he looked around the vault. There were metal shelves along the two side walls where chests and ingots had been stacked, but nothing along the back wall. He found that odd. Using his goggles, he could just barely see traces of subtle magic of some kind. It took him twenty minutes of working with the goggles to see three rectangular areas on the far wall that stood out. Going to the far left, he looked at the 2'x2' square. Hidden seams were just barely apparent, as was a runic puzzle the size of a coin. It took him a minute to figure out the puzzle, and then the square became a hatch and the lock clicked. As he touched the hatch, runes glowed and moved into new patterns.

You've found an abandoned Treasure Chest! This hidden dimensional compartment was placed here by the Rogue Engineer Edward Damyon, or as his wanted posters called him, 'Black Eddy'.

-By the Laws of the Sea, you may loot the treasures inside.

-By the Laws of Engineering, you may claim this dimensional compartment and add it to your own for the cost of five enhancement points.

With no hesitation, he claimed both the treasure and the additional space. The wall now had an empty hole in it where the storage had been. He was very curious about the other two hidden treasures. He moved to the center one, a 4'x4' square. He was able to find the puzzle used to open it, but no matter what he tried, it wouldn't activate. He moved to the rightmost area, easily solving the puzzle.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Eddy isn't going to be happy with you! Luckily, he's dead.

This hidden dimensional compartment was placed here by the Rogue Engineer Edward Damyon, or as his wanted posters called him, 'Black Eddy'.

-By the Laws of the Sea, you may loot the treasures inside.

-By the Laws of Engineering, you may claim this dimensional compartment and add it to your own for the cost of five enhancement points.

Again, Milo paid the price and added the eight square feet to his Smugglers Stash. He liked these hidden treasures and the rules for stealing them. Could he do it because the owner was dead? Or because he'd been kicked out of his Engineering guild? Those were questions for later. He went back to the center puzzle to try again to figure it out and saw that it was now active. He understood. The two smaller treasures had to both be unlocked before the center could be activated. A further security measure perhaps? He set about to solve the puzzle, and was still at it a half hour later, sweating hard and thinking with three parts of his mind. Black Eddy had a subtle mind, and there were puzzles within puzzles. Finally, when he used a non-Euclidian system of simultaneous non-linear equations, the answer became obvious. He punched the rune that represented '42' and the entire wall transformed.

The wall first pulled back forming a small room. A small workbench equipped with two vises went across the four-foot-wide back wall. The wall behind it was filled with calipers, drills, diamond saws, and all manner of precision tools. Milo picked up a #21 Gangley wrench and admired it before placing it lovingly back in its holder. On either side of him were stacked sea chests that could slide out to access their interiors. A small shelf above the workbench held bound notes, and handwritten journals. Two empty whiskey jugs acted as bookends.

You have accessed an abandoned Engineer's Arcane Workshop, most recently owned by the Rogue Engineer Edward Damyon. As a Senior Engineer with access to extra-dimensional storage space, you may claim this Workshop for yourself. Cost: 30 Enhancement Points.

Milo gleefully spent all his eel-gotten points, leaving him with three extra points. His mind felt like it expanded as knowledge of the Arcane Workshop filled some chunk of his mind.

Congratulations on earning your Arcane Workshop. Summoning your Arcane Workshop uses 1000 stamina. This process takes one minute.

This workshop contains 6 storage chests:

#1 Gold, Silver, or Platinum: 400 Ingot Capacity. (Currently empty.)

#2 Iron, Copper, or Tin: 400 Ingots. (Currently contains three ingots of Tin.)

#3 Whiskey, Rum, or WD-400. 100 bottles. (Currently contains three partially full bottles of dwarven whiskey.)

#4 Toy Soldiers, paint, modeling tools, and brushes. (Currently holds 57 dried-up bottles of Citadel Paint, 16 used paint brushes, and 42 half-painted 32mm scale halfling models.)

#5 Raw diamonds, crystals, and uncut rubies. (Currently contains 62 assorted gems.)

#6 Pipeweed, junk, or anything you feel like. 64 cubic foot capacity. (Currently contains 1 pouch of 'Special Weed' from Longcut Moot.) freewёbnoνel.com

Milo pulled out the first chest and opened it up. It was much deeper than it looked. Trying not to think about the mysteries he'd discovered, he used his ring to make a small camp and summon his pet. Georgie showed up and looked around, very confused.

"I need help. Think of it as playing fetch. I need you to pick up all the loose ingots in that pile and dump them in this chest." Fetch was something Georgie loved. He loved almost any game. He wagged his tail happily and dove into the water, coming up with an ingot in his mouth. Milo took out the two gathering bags and dumped them into chest #6, then worked to gather all the loose coins still in the vault, dumping them bag by bag into the empty chests.

His air pocket was going bad by the time Georgie and he had filled the two chests with ingots and loose coins and cleared enough room to escape. He took a moment to dismiss his tombstone and then, feeling he needed to leave a message used a claw to scrawl something on the floor. He used his ring to give himself an hour of water breathing, a very odd feeling as the water swirled around his new gills. Georgie thought he looked better with them and accompanied him as he made his way out of the wreckage. Swift-Swimming propelled him to the surface where he and his pet dogpaddled to the docks as the sun was just coming up.