Another chapter in, this one took an ass load of time due to laziness and me going through it all and making minor changes/straightening the lines out.
Reg closed his eyes and felt is body hit something, the side of the Ore Cart! He quickly scrambled
to grab the edge of the cart, but he didn't want to drop his chest of treasures, oh what a choice!
Reg was about to give up and just drop the chest when a strong familiar hand reached down and
lifted him up onto the cart. "Thanks Bomrek, I almost dropped my chest" Reg said, leaning forward
to adjust for the wind hitting his body. "Reg, remind me some time in the future to take you with
me on mining trips, its great training for things like that." "Haha..We'll see Bomrek."
An Ore Transporter is basically a huge mine cart being pulled along by a rope, which would be
winched up from where the thing was supposed to go, as its name implies the OreTransporter takes
rocks and things from the mine's warehouse, and brings them to the TravelTunnel's Warehouse.
Bomrek laid belly down in the coal and looked over the side of the cart, even with the lantern
it was very hard to make out the markings. "It says.. Coal Mine number five to Travel Tunnel
number seven. Travel tunnel seven is about ... a block from the public statue garden isn't it?"
said Bomrek as he dusted off his coat. "Bomrek, I have no idea. You know I don't read the tunnel
signs when I walk around the sector." The wind was rushing past their faces, their beards
flying behind their backs in the torrent. The transporter kept going at blazing speeds for
a few minutes, then started to slow. "Looks like we're nearing the station Reg, when I tell
you, jump off the back end and try to hide behind the cart as much as possible."
Now the transporter slowed to about the speed of a walking horse, the two dwarves could see the
light from warehouse up ahead quickly coming into view. Bomrek wobbled over to the back edge of
the transporter. "Ok, watch what I do and repeat." Bomrek slithered over the back edge, feet
first, and landed on the transporters rope hook, it was just big enough for a dwarf to stand on
without needing to hold on to any thing. "Pass the chest down, quickly." Reg quickly complied and
took a look up the tunnel. He could make out other transporters stopping up ahead and dwarves
hurriedly unloading the things into wagons to be carted off to the Travel Tunnel. Reg hopped off
the edge and landed on the hook, almost falling off. There he saw Bomrek lugging his chest down
the tunnel. Reg stepped off the hook and followed Bomrek, hiding near the bottom of the transport
as it was slowly pulled out of the tunnel.
Luckily none of the workers noticed them, and they, while not exactly calmly, walked out of the
huge warehouse undisturbed. As they reached the street they both burst into laughter, catching a
few stray looks from the dwarves walking down the street. " Bomrek that was fun but lets walk
back to the apartment tunnel this time instead." Reg said as he wiped the coal off his clothes.
"Thank Thol pigtail is easy to clean, I would hate to go to the Dwarfitourium with soot all over
my clothes." "Yeah, sorry about that. But hey, at least its better than landing on a load of
obsidian, that stuff is sharp let me tell you." Reg looked gleefully down the street in the
direction of the public garden, "Do you think they will have those bottles of.. What was it
called? Soon shine?" "Sun shine",corrected Bomrek. "Right right" Said Reg "I hope they have some
of that, I loved it last year, too bad its so expensive. What was it last year, 100 crowns a
bottle?" "What ever it was, I doubt you have the money for it Reg. Lets just get ourselves some
of that fancy beer they had last year, it was pretty good quality stuff, and cost, what, 6 crowns
a mug?" "Yeah, lets go check it out, maybe I can buy something usefull." "You could sure use a new
bed, that thing you have now is a splintered board" "That would be nice, but I don't think I
would have enough trade goods and crowns for any thing after that." "Just get the bed any way,
your going to need it, trust me. That slab you have now will probly be broken in half this time
next year."
The two dwarves turned a corner into the public shopping area, no scruffy little stands in this
place, actual stores in their own tunnels. Something caught Reg's eye, it was a petshop. Reg
looked into the shop through the metal bars and saw a litter of CaveCats rolling around in a
bucket. Reg had seen a few surface cats before in shows, he liked cave cats much better. They had
much better eyes, were generally pure white, and almost glowed when light hit them. They were
also much more stocky, perfect for the cold deep caves of LargeLands' sectors. There was one
Caveat though, it had a black stripe down its back, from its eyes to the tip of its tail, had
black feet that came up to its knees, and had dirty-white fur every where else. "Aaaw look at
that little thing Bomrek, its so cute." "Hmm?" Bomrek stopped and looked into the petshop, but not
at the kittens, he was looking at the Dwarven woman maning the counter at the petshop.
"Why..Yes..Cute is the right word I think, come on lets go inside." Bomrek opened the metal
door, ringing the bell hanging above the doorway. The woman seemed oblivious to the two dwarves
who just entered her shop. The shop was alive with the sounds of the animals. The cooing of the
newborn kittens, the chirping of the small canaries, the soft constant hum of the purring
maggots, the shopkeepers abicas was the only unnatural sound inside the building. Reg and Bomrek
stood there for a few moments, looking at the woman and exchanging questioning glances. Reg
shrugged, took a kitten from the viewing bucket and walked up to the stone table the woman was
working on, on it she had some clay tablets, a metal writing stick, and some soft clay, on the
clay were numbers and tallys, Reg couldn't make much sense of it. "Excuse me miss, I would like
to buy this Kitten please." The woman stopped fiddling with her abicas, looked up, obviously
surprised to find two dwarves suddenly apear in her shop. The woman suddenly struck Reg as very
beautiful, he almost dropped the kitten he was holding, the woman saw this and quickly put her
hands under Reg's so the kitten would slip safely into her's. She had orange hair and blue eyes,
a very uncommon trait among the dwarves of sector seven. "Hi..Uh..My names Reg, I wanted to buy
that kitten there."
"Oh, sure, im sorry I didn't hear you come in, the cat will cost you 20 crowns" As Reg opened up
his coin sack and counted the coins, he said "What exactly were you doing there at the table,
that metal square with the bars and the circle things?" "Oh, thats my abacis, I use it to help me
calculate. See, im trying to learn how to keep records, calculate stocks, learn how to apraise
items of their worth, things like that. Oh, and my name is Fath, Fath Muthkattunom." "Fath, thats
a pretty name." Bomrek piped in. "Why thank you, and whats yours?" "The name is Bomrek Adasiteb,
of the Abasiteb miners. Me and Reg here were going to the Dwarfitourium, would you like to come
too?" Fath blushed a bit, and Reg handed her the crowns. "We were just headed for the
Dwarfitourium, want to join us?"asked Reg as he picked up his new cat. "I don't know.. I've got to
run the store, and practice my calculating." "Come on, we stop at the brewfestival when we get
there, I can almost taste the malt liquor! They say its a human delicacy you know, pricey, but
not as pricey as that sunshine stuff. It'll be fun!"
Fath's smile quickly faded to a frown for a moment, but even before Reg finished the sentence
it was back. "Whats wrong?" Reg asked, hoping he hadn't offended his new friend. "Oh..Nothing,
but yes, I think I'll come with you. You've been my only customer all day, I dont think I'll be
losing much business by closing down for a bit. Just let me lock up the shop first and get my
coat." Fath walked into another room and came out a minute or two later, holding an empty sack.
She walked over to the remaining kittens and lifted them one by one into the bag. "What are you
doing Fath?" Fath looked over at Reg, "Im going to sell these kittens at the Dwarfitourium,
they'll pay pretty good money for pure bred CaveCats, after they leave here they are going to
travel to the surface eventually. Cave cats are in great demand up there, something like a 257%
increase in price you see." Reg raised an eyebrow and said "Your pretty good at that record
keeping stuff, why don't you go be a merchant instead of runing this little petstore?" "Well, for
one thing before I can be a merchant I need to get some money to buy the things im planing on
selling, any ways, I have all the trade goods I need, lets go to the dwarfitourium." they walked
out of the shop, Fath inserted a large iron key into the door and locked it. "Come on" Fath said
as she strided down the crowded market street.
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Topic: Writing Workshop! (Read 18627 times)