Redneck Engineering

  Siegemaster stared in disbelief. “You built a mech to capture aquatic creatures using hooks on lines attached to poles? And you release the little ones?”

  “Yes sir. Ain’t no point in keeping the little ones. The big ones are worth more.” the bib overall and rubber boot wearing individual said while sipping his beer as one of the poles on his mech popped to secure the hook and began to automatically reel in the prey.

  “And the rocket launchers and camouflage paint scheme?” Siegemaster asked while watching the by far highest leveled resident he had encountered during his time on planet Earth. They had headed south in search of resources and more people after absorbing the city controlled by the guild of mech builders. The guild members were training in the dungeon, gathering resources in the dungeon, or working in the dungeon provided crafting areas to create improved mechs to fulfill roles other than dps.

  “Ducks.” The man said while spitting brown liquid into the water his mech was wading through. “The camo helps us blend in a little. The damn things have gotten a lot more perceptive since this system non-sense began. A lot tougher, too. Shotguns don’t bring them down anymore.”

  “Why haven’t you just enchanted it for stealth?” The siegemaster asked as the man’s two sons worked to put the massive fish into a spatial storage.

  “Just how the hell am I supposed to know how to do that? It’s not like enchanting manuals grow on trees around here. Sure, some of the boys on base worked out how to hide from radar, but ducks don’t use radar. They use their eyeballs and their danger sense.” the man said.

  The ogre threw him a copy of his mom’s training manual. The man began flipping through it. His sons moved over and looked over his shoulder. Siegemaster held a copy of the basic enchanting skill book in his hand waiting for them to ask for it. The mech kept popping up poles and reeling in fish while they looked.

  All three heads popped up at the same time and one of the boys screamed, “Watch out.’ Troy screamed, “SHOOT THAT SUCKA!!!” However, it was too late. The deeper water exploded next to where the ogre was watching them from and an enormous head came out of the water in an attempt to snap onto his leg and drag him under. Unfortunately for the massive alligator, the just as massive humanoid was extremely overleveled for this planet and had been training with the emperor and the crazy slime since before he was out of diapers.

  Moving faster than the humans’ eyes could follow, the ogre casually reached down and slapped the head of the reptile up into the air. As the end of the tail reached shoulder height, Siegemaster grabbed it and spun the over nine meter long nearly three thousand kilogram alligator casually over his head before tossing it up to his dungeon ship that opened a portal to absorb its new creature type.

  The humans stared from the top of their rocking mech as water fell down on top of them. “Damn, boy. Them muscles ain’t just for show.” Troy said. “We do our best to avoid the big ones like that. Too much damage to the mech trying to take them on. Shame we didn’t get the hide though. It would have been worth a fortune.”

  The ogre shrugged. “You’ll have plenty to capture inside the dungeon. Delilah will run them through the training grounds and get them leveled as high as you want them. She can also fiddle with the genetics of them crossbreeding or developing mutations. We don’t plan on spending too much time on the evolution upgrades because our primary focus will be on preparing you humans for the invasion, but she’ll want some challenging beasts for you to train against. Our mission is two part: Save as many as possible and make you as strong as possible.”

  Troy looked around and announced that it was time to leave. “Fish ain’t going to be biting for a while and we got enchanting to learn. You like gumbo, Siegeblaster?” The boys’ eyes went wide and quickly whispered something in his father’s ear. “Master? What the hell are you ….oh…sorry big guy. My hearin ain’t the greatest no more. Siegemaster. My apologies.”

  The ogre hadn’t paid much attention to the incorrect name. John and Gummy still called him Baby Ogre even though he was several times their size. “Never tried gumbo.” He said as he watched the mech quickly reel in all its lines and all the poles retracted into the shell of the mech. He also knew courtesy of some of the skills his mother and the warmaster had made him learn that Troy was testing him by purposely mispronouncing his name. He had witnessed Gummy use the same trick many times to annoy someone that he felt deserved being annoyed.. However, he knew that wasn’t Troy’s intention. The human was testing his personality to see how he’d react to a minor show of disrespect.

  Once the lines were clear, Troy turned the open control module and steered it towards the shore. Water stirred behind the mech as it obviously was using some sort of propulsion system. As it approached shore, its movements became less smooth and the egg shaped control module started rising out of the water. On the bottom of the egg, he saw the propulsion system was two small motors attached to blades that looked as if they were designed to push the water.

  Also beneath the egg were two short legs that had tracks instead of feet. These tracks were rotating and slowly plowing through the mud at the edge of the bog. As it rose onto drier ground, the mech picked up speed. The ogre followed behind them as they turned onto a trail. The dungeon ship followed behind occasionally stopping to take a sample of the wildlife or vegetation.

  The boys watched as the dungeon floated entire trees or small groups of plants up into a portal. “What will your dungeon do with the stuff it gathers?” One of the boys asked.

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  “She’ll use it to create templates so she can recreate them. She’ll also absorb essence from what she absorbs and use it to increase her mass reserves. It’s cheaper to create stuff if she has the necessary mass reserves instead of having to weave them completely from essence.” Siegemaster explained.

  When they turned into an area surrounded by a white fence, Troy motioned the ogre to come closer. “Now, Mr Siegemaster, I must warn you. My wife is a bit free with her tongue and her opinions, but she has a kind heart. Please do not take offense…” he explained but was cut off by a high pitched voice.

  “Troy Dean! I told you no more pets. What are we going to feed that thing?” The siegemaster looked at the short woman who he judged to be quite attractive by human standards with blonde hair and blue eyes that made him think of his Momma with the way she stood there with one hand on a hip and the other hand pointing a large wooden spoon threateningly.

  “I was hoping to try your gumbo that John has been bragging about all day.” the ogre said as he bowed to the obvious master of the house. “He said it’s the best in the world and I ain’t lived until I’ve had a taste of it.”

  “Cornbread.” Troy mouthed.

  “And he said your cornbread was even better than your gumbo.”

  The lady looked between the two suspiciously before glancing up at the dungeon that was just then coming into sight and said, “You’re one of those dungeon masters we’ve heard so much about. Here to help us save ourselves from the invasion that’s coming?” The ogre nodded, so she turned and called over her shoulder as she walked quickly away. “Would have been nice to know you were coming so soon, but I’ve got plenty made for you to have a taste. You four wash up and we’ll eat outback. Siegemaster…” she paused and waited for a nodded confirmation that her guess was correct, “is a might bit too big to be eating indoors.”

  Troy gave him a thumbs up as the boy driving the mech parked it and the egg lowered to the ground and the side retracted allowing them to climb down a rope ladder. The boys started removing their boots next to where some towels were hanging next to a hose, bucket, soap, and a brush. The ogre, quick to figure out what they were doing, cast cleanse on the four of them.

  Troy and the boys looked at their spotlessly clean clothes and bodies and Troy said, “That is mighty handy. Any chance…” His question was answered before he even finished as the ogre handed them four copies of a tome teaching the spell. It was one of the spells he had discovered were very popular with the humans, so he had purchased quite a few to give out as gifts.

  As they ate, Mrs Troy grilled Siegemaster, “So Siegemaster, what is your real name. I’m sure your mama didn’t call you Siegemaster.”

  “Baby Ogre.” He said as he struggled to not break any of the tiny bowls or utensils as he enjoyed the flavor of the gumbo. He found he liked it very much. It had many strong flavors mixed together. No two bites were exactly the same. Reminded him of the stews his mom would make. All the flavors mixed together, not like the dainty separate flavors the humans and elves on homeworld preferred.

  She looked up at him and reached over to put a hand on his overly muscled green arm. “I doubt anyone calls you that anymore. What did your mama name you?”

  “John and Gummy do. However, everybody else just calls me Siegemaster.” He shrugged. Sensing this wouldn’t satisfy the female human, he explained. “Ogres don’t get named until they reach level 20. By then everybody knew me as Baby Ogre and when I earned the Siegemaster title, they just switched to using that.”

  Rolling her eyes, she slapped him with the back of her hand. “But your momma gave you a name didn’t she?” Her eyes went wide and she quickly said, “Unless ogres don’t share their names.”

  Baby Ogre waved his hand, “No. It’s not like that. It’s just that she named me after her guard who gave his life to save me and some other children. He and Binxie were the first heroes of the Drake Empire. It was before Destiny could make us immortal. Destiny sponsors our dungeons here, so they grow much faster than she did on Homeworld.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry for your loss. What was his name?” Mrs Troy asked.

  Baby Ogre looked up. There was a reason he never used his real name. However, there was obviously no way getting around it with this women. She seemed to put great stock in knowing someone’s name, so he took a deep breath and said it. “John.”

  “Oh. That’s a nice name John. I like it.” she said with a smile before her forehead wrinkled. “But aren’t…”

  The Ogre nodded. “Yes. Gummy’s real name is John and since he’s from here, he has claimed the name. The Emperor is going by Drake.”

  Blonde hair bobbed up and down as Mrs Troy chuckled, her eyes glistening in amusement. “I can see the problem. People will do all kinds of annoying things like yell, Hey John. When the three of you are sitting together. Did you have any nicknames besides Baby Ogre?” She then paused and asked, “Are…Are all males on your planet named John?”

  The Ogre looked at her for a second before letting out a chuckle. “No. There were a few other originally, but people thought it too pretentious to name their child after the emperor. It was just an unfortunate twist of fate that the three of us share a name. Of course, Gummy couldn’t speak for the longest time because he was a slime, but he figured out a way eventually and by then everybody was calling him Battlemaster.”

  The rest of the meal went by quickly with the ogre spending most of the time speaking of the antics of this world’s most famous slime, dragons, elves, and dwarves. The boys were shocked to find out dragons were real and looked towards the sky as if one might appear at any second.

  “So how do we do this?” Mrs Troy asked.

  The ogre raised an eyebrow. “Do what?”

  The blonde haired woman raised her arm and motioned around her. “How do we become part of your dungeon?”

  “Oh. I actually have a different plan for you.” The ogre said. The dungeon hovering over the large side yard lowered and a human came walking out of a portal holding a strange metallic crystal. He gave it to the giant ogre and walked back to disappear into another portal. “We’ve found a few dungeon cores when we stopped to absorb mass and resources. Some are ready to deploy. I thought you could start gathering up smaller towns as I get the larger ones. Your dungeon is a subordinate to Delilah. She has trained a dungeon assistant to get you started.”

  The couple looked at each other. Troy turned and looked at the ogre, “That’s a lot of trust you’re putting in us. I haven’t heard of anybody else getting a dungeon from one of you. Are you sure?”

  Siegemaster smiled as he observed the orbs floating over the shoulders of the couple. They were created by a skill he had learned that assisted him in evaluating the character of the people he spoke with. Their spheres told him they were the type of people who would do everything they could to help those in need. He started to explain, but was interrupted by an excited shout from where the boys were tinkering with the mech.

  The adults stood and walked over. The ogre saw the mech was now surrounded by a blurry low level stealth enchantment. Troy looked at the boys and asked, “Where did the Mech go? You didn’t launch it again, did you?”

  The boys shook their heads and quickly turned off the stealth enchantment. The ogre did a double take when he realized they had created the enchantment with bailing wire and tape. He went and looked closely at it. It was a rough but nearly correct copy of the stealth enchantment his mother included in the beginner level book he had given them. There was only one problem. It shouldn’t have worked without the correct materials. “How?” he asked.

  Troy looked at the enchantment and quickly deduced what was causing the confusion. Laughing he said, “We have a special skill that allows us to replace materials with duct tape and baling wire. Comes in quite handy when you’re stuck in a bog with no way to get to town.”

  The ogre could only shake his head as he pulled out two tomes to teach them proper enchanting.