The plight of the slovenly dwarven mechanics hadn't bothered Milo. Lots of people had problems, and he couldn't fix them all, especially if they weren't willing to work to fix their own problems. Only one of them seemed to have the right attitude about it. Fixing the poor, abused mechanical bear had been another story. He could tell that underneath the dirt and rust, there was a fine machine. The mechanics might have lacked the knowledge of how to keep it running, but the lack of maintenance was something Milo couldn't forgive. After the snail problem was taken care of, he'd see that she got the attention she deserved.
And now that other problems were off his mind, he started wondering about the snails. He lacked information. He knew snails grew very large in the depths, and that some of them could be quite nasty. Most had teeth that could eat away soft rock, and some had acid attacks. Both could be nasty surprises for any snail hunter looking for a tasty dinner. The Myconians used the ground shells to make solid roads, and they had problems with the invasive species, needed the aid of outside help, and one snail in particular was causing problems. Outside of that, and his knowledge of common garden snails learned while reading on the Datanet, he knew nothing about the situation.
Luckily, he might have a few people nearby who did. "Tell me about the snails and the job of snail killing, please."
There was general grumbling and some laughter. Finally, the youngest dwarf spoke. "Weird and scary. The big snails come out of the lower caves into a big sloping cavern full of mushroom beds. All types with spikes, burning shells, and tentacles for mouths. Just a nightmare. And then the mushroom warriors come crawling out of the dirt, walking down the hill to meet the snails. Neither side says anything. No horns or flags, just monsters slowly moving toward each other."
Dagmar made a rude noise, "Wasn't that bad. The slope gave the cannon extra range. We put a lot of iron into those snails that day."
The young dwarf pulled out a worn journal from his pocket. "Only because we kept shooting at the big ones in the front rank and going over their heads and hitting the little ones in the back. We hit 1 out of 37 shots that we aimed at and got 16 confirmed kills of the smaller stuff behind it. That's why we only got 4 months knocked off the rent. The big ones are worth a lot more. We need to adjust for the drop in altitude. If we go for kills on the big ones, we get more points, and the misses will still hit the back ranks."
Dagmar took a swig of whiskey, with some running into his ungroomed beard. "Poppycock and fiddlesticks. You aim cannons using a Mark 1 eyeball and a good gut. Your numbers, Ziggy, will get you in trouble someday, mark my words."
"Grandaddy Hack loves numbers and taught them to me. I like figuring out the trajectories on Ursa's cannons."
"Bah, silliness. Hack made up all that crap to confuse people. And it worked, I was sure confused."
Milo liked numbers, too. "Can I see your journal, Ziggy? I'd love to take a look at your calculations."The young dwarf was suddenly very nervous. One didn't just hand over personal math calculations to strangers. But this was the first person since Grandaddy Hack to take an interest in his work. "I guess so."
Milo flipped through the pages quickly. "Oh, very nice. You've noted the type of powder used, the angle of the decline, and estimated distances for each shot. This is useful, thank you for sharing knowledge." He thumbed through the notes on the battle, went no further, and handed the journal back to the nervous beardling. "A friend of mine is very interested in explosives and projectile weapons. I will ask Professor Boom if he has any textbooks on the subject you could read."
Dagmar belched. "Don't go filling his head with numbers. He needs to get his hands greasy, not fiddle with a pencil."
Milo glared at him until the older dwarf became uncomfortable. "I can cause more damage with a pencil than you can with a cannon. But really? Why not use both? It's so much more satisfying. You and the others will act as loaders and spotters. Ziggy and I will calculate the trajectories and see if we can't knock some years off your rent and keep you out of the mulchpile."
All of the dwarves hoisted a bottle or flask and drank to not being mulch. Ziggy smiled and ignored his cousin Dagmar, who seemed unhappy still.
The bear suddenly slowed, letting out a low growl. Milo looked at the crystal, which was still showing a charge of 99%. The machine was getting power, but didn't seem to want to move. Dagmar said, "Oh shit. You woke her up, and she's hungry. Grab the Bearjuice, Ziggy, and let's fill her up. I'll get the lubricants. Andak, you and Trunt handle the transmission fluids. Something isn't right."
They began opening hatches and pouring fluids into funnels. Milo helped Ziggy with his chore, which seemed more complex. They had to unlatch eight fasteners on the top of the bear's head and then push the hinged hatch up like the hood of an automobile. Milo was immediately interested and appalled by what he saw. In the center of the cavity was a thick glass cannister with a large brain floating inside. Tubes and wires connected the brain the the rest of the machine. Milo catalogued 137 small jobs that needed doing, from replacing frayed wires to scrubbing rust. He pushed that aside and asked the foremost question.
"Whose brain is that?"
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Ziggy was carefully wiping grime from an input pipe. When it was clean, he put a funnel in the center. "Help me lift up this jug, we can't afford to waste a drop of it. Comes from Bloth and costs a ton of money. Dagmar's been starving her and making her sleep a lot. She's down to 5% and he only lets me bring her up to 10%. Oh, and it was Great Grandy Brack's pet bear, Ursa. He was mining and disturbed her. They fought tooth and nail, and finally, the bear won. To his surprise, she let him go with a quest to bring her a gallon of honey and a dozen seed cakes. People thought he was crazy for going back, but his pride wouldn't let him fail the quest. She let him live again, and after seven years of doing the quest over and over, they got to be friends and went off to the wars together as mercenaries. When Ursa got hurt really badly and she was dying, he paid a wheelbarrow full of gold to an Alchemical Engineer named Tursurbo Blightworm to save her life. He took the gold, but the best he could do was this. Bear brain in a jar. That's when they started building mechanical bears to put her inside."
"Can you get more of the Bearjuice in the Foreign Market?"
"Yeah, but we don't have the money for it. Heck, even if we did, Dagmar would spend it on whiskey. Pisses me off. Poor Ursa needs to be treated better."
"Oh, I agree, completely. Any machine needs to be properly cared for and fueled. Doubly so, an intelligent one. If Dagmar asks, tell him it's my fault." Milo took the jug and poured the rest of the fluid into the funnel, bringing the gauge up to 87% full on the storage and completely refilling the glass enclosure where the brain floated. Ziggy quickly put the jug away while Milo slammed the hood and dogged the clasps. The machine's noise changed. The clanking in the drive train ceased as lubricants flowed. The engine revved higher and higher, and a low growl echoed from the mouth of the bear. The clawed metal feet pawed at the dirt, and the motions became less machine-like.
"SHIT and SHINOLA! What the hell did you do, Ziggy?!"
Milo got back in the driver's seat. "Totally my fault, I nudged him, and the jug spilled. Luckily into the funnel. I'll buy a new jug of Bearjuice if we survive this expedition. Now hang on, we need to navigate the next tunnel and head for this big cavern called the Fields of War." He began to adjust the controls, and Ursa took off at a much faster run. More of the controls were working now, some of them adjusting on their own. He barely had to steer as the bear kept to the road and headed into a long tunnel that wound through beds of mushrooms, mulch piles, and the hollow, gigantic mushrooms that served the Myconians as dwellings of some sort. The ground was sloping down now, and the area had small pools fed from streams coming from the sides of the cavern or dripping from above. The beds or mushrooms were huge now, taking up a quarter of an acre with giant mushroom varieties that grew in a packed mass. Shroomlings and small Myconians were filling the small streams with nutrients that entered each bed, the murky water emerging on the other side and continuing to the next area. The road ran down the center, but they had to slow down their pace. All around them, ten-foot-tall Myconian Warforms were emerging from the soil, absorbing the mushrooms growing in the beds to enlarge their bodies. Their heads swiveled back and forth, then oriented towards the snails as the Collective took control and began walking them down the hill.
Below, an army of warforms was already stretched thinly across the cavern, forming a defensive wall. Large, colorful snails were emerging from a dozen side tunnels and massing in the center of the far end of the cavern. They were forming a wedge formation, with the largest snail in the rear. It was a monstrous thing with a horned head and tentacles around a mouth filled with sharp teeth. Even the head and tentacles were armored in shell-like material. The largest snails in front had shells six feet tall. Gargantua dwarfed them, the top of its shell at least twenty feet tall and equally wide and long.
Between the two armies, Milo saw destroyed mushroom beds and the signs of old battles. Ziggy pointed at a rocky outcropping. "That's where we set up the cannons the last time. We can park Ursa there and adjust for the five feet and nine inches of extra height in our trajectory calculations."
Milo liked the spot; they could fire the cannons without hitting any of the friendly Warforms. Getting there was difficult, though. The ground was soft mulch and very wet. Ursa sank eight inches into it and had to be careful of her balance. The air was thick and warm, with a lot of moisture, and Milo could see that water trickled from one bed to another. The entire slope was a muddy morass for anyone but the Warforms. The bear seemed relieved to get to the rock, locked her knees in place, and more controls came online.
Milo was recalling what he knew about cannon fire. The muddy ground would absorb a lot of force when they bounced. "Was it this wet last time?"
Dagmar laughed. "Nope. Wet, but not like this, and not nearly so many fields making big guys. Those lower beds were producing aromatic shrooms for specialty mulch. Looks like they moved into war production in a big way."
Milo was watching as even more snails entered the cavern, each bigger than the last. "I think the snails had the same idea. Lock and load, gunners. It's time to show the Collective what you're worth and bring down your debt." From Ursa came a loud roar. The bear agreed.