The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, water was flowing in the caverns again. On days like these, dogs like Nicena were forced to fix their mechanical creations. Recently, some of her automatons have been malfunctioning, and none of the usual methods of fixing them were working. She tried smacking them with a wrench or three, “bonking” them with her hammer, and just plain tinkering with their machinery, but none of her efforts seemed to bear fruit.
However, after her tinkering, Nicena had noticed that their circuitry was spot on, needing no correction in the slightest, and there seemed to be zero problems with their coding. Therefore, the problem must lie within their metal-working, specifically the rust accumulating on their bodies, and she had very limited knowledge on the subject of metallurgy. Why metallurgy, one may ask. To find a sort of metal alloy that would be rust-resistant of course! Hence, a trip to the library to find a source material to expand upon. While she was there, she might as well hire someone to fix her roofing. The water dripping down into her workshop was starting to get annoying...
As she passed through the city, she noticed some strange fliers that weren’t around the day before. Some sort of warning about… humans? She didn’t really take note of it at the time, so focused she was on mending her “pack”. After a reasonably short trek, Nicena finally reached the tall building of the library, taking in a deep, calming breath before entering the establishment. Her enthusiasm was not welcome in the building that encouraged silence, so she kept it in check as well as she could, surveying the nearly endless amount of bookshelves to find the subject she was looking for. Twenty minutes in, and she wasn’t even half done with the first shelf. With a muffled groan, the canine rubbed her eyes from under her goggles with a paw, willing to deal with the mind-numbing task in order to fix the problem within her creations.
Dorkle waved goodbye as System left. He didn’t really have time to say anything before she disappeared.
“Oh well. She is very busy, I guess,” he thought to himself. He went back to work and sat down behind the counter. A few monsters were checking out and returning books, so he helped them out with that. He saw that the book cart was getting full so he pushed it over to the shelves and began to place the books back in their proper spots on the shelves.
The cart was very heavy with all the books; it was a surprise that he was able to push it at all. It was a lot of work and he was starting to get tired after only putting back about a dozen of the books. As he was working, he saw a familiar friendly face.
“Miss Nicena! Miss Nicena!” he whispered as loudly as he could without disturbing the other patrons. He did his best to push his cart over towards her. Why was it so heavy? He should invent a robot to do this job for him. He’ll keep that in mind as a project he needs to work on later.
”Are you looking for a book? If you’re looking for a book on mechanical engineering, you’re in the wrong section. This is the fiction section. The book you’re probably looking for is on that shelf over there,” he said, pointing at the nonfiction section a few rows down.
Nicena was becoming quite irritated. None of these books seemed to be of any use, even if their titles seemed to show promise for entertainment, and weren’t even close to being on the topic she needed to research. As she was about to move onto the next shelf, a recognizable voice cut through the subdued atmosphere, the familiar tone of a certain monster rang true within her ears. To her, he was as loud as if he was standing right next to her, and the silence of the library only amplified his voice. A silly little smile appeared on Nicena’s face, gladdened by the break in monotony. She turned towards her protege, greeting him with as much cheer as she could muster.
”Hey there! Nice to see you again!”, the machinist tried to whisper in reply, but even at her lowest volume her voice was still boisterous enough to be heard by nearby readers. After receiving a collective “shushing”, she lent her ear to her protege, a blush of embarrassment appearing on her face as he singled out her error, before she facepalmed with her paw in disbelief.
”Whoopsies,” her muffled voice whispered softer than earlier. A sheepish grin spread across her face as her mistake was pointed out by her junior. How many times had she screwed up her positioning in the library, needing to be pointed towards a different location by another monster? Too many times to count, that’s for sure.
Nicena gave the smaller monster a short hug, really glad that he wasn’t making fun of her obvious error. During the short time she hugged him, she couldn’t help but notice the large pile of books on the cart he was pushing.
”Thanks, Dorkle! But, do you need some help with that cart? It looks a bit heavy to be pushing around by yourself,” she noted quietly, feeling quite grateful for his help, even with just a small task. He cut the time she would have needed to use up in her unfruitful search, and she wanted to repay him his kindness.
Dorkle blushed as his mentor gave him a hug. He was not used to affection from anyone.
”Uh… I appreciate the offer… but I should do it myself,” he said shyly, shifting his feet.
“A-anyways, what are you working on? Do you need any help?” ”Well..,” Nicena started. If Dorkle said he was alright, then he was alright. She, however, wasn’t going to turn down the extra help.
”I’ll need a few references on metallurgy, and maybe a book on blacksmithing for good measure. Do they have any books on those subjects?” There was no way she was going to be making any metal anytime soon, but it would be nice to have the information for when she needed it.
“Oh, I’m sure we do. I’ll help you look for it. It’s my job after all,” he said with a smile. He pushed his cart towards the nonfiction section to help guide Nicena. He didn’t have to worry about going too fast and losing her, because the cart was so hard to push. If anything, he probably made her slow down her pace just so he could keep up with her. It was rather embarrassing.
Eventually they reached the shelf and it was filled with many books about metal and what not. He scanned the shelf and pulled one of the books out that he believed to be helpful. It was a bit dusty though. Unsurprisingly, books on blacksmithing and metallurgy were not a hit with the other monsters.
Metallurgy. What a very straight-forward title. It was written by a monster by the name of F. E. Irons. Maybe it was a coincidence?
He then handed the book to Nicena.
“Would something like this work?” he asked.
The female canine gave the shorter monster a wide grin, happy that her problem was solved so quickly while simultaneously stabbing a mental image of herself for being so inattentive.
”That was exactly what I needed! Thank you!” Nicena said gleefully as she took the book from Dorkle, momentarily forgetting to lower her tone in her excitement. A book was thrown at the back of her head, as well as another round of “shushing” for her trouble.
After shaking off a few cobwebs caused by the hardback projectile, the dog monster remembered a certain peculiarity she noticed during her travel towards the library.
”Hey, Dorkle,” she started, gaining a look of curiosity and hidden tension as she asked her question.
”Why were there warnings about humans in the Underground? Aren’t they blocked by the barrier to the Surface?Dorkle felt bad that the other monsters in the library were upset with Nicena. But it was a library, and one must be quiet in a library. Still, throwing a book at her was a bit harsh. Maybe he should talk to that young man… if he wasn’t so scary looking.
Then Nicena brought up the human posters that he and System worked on. He was a bit taken aback by her question but did his best to explain.
“A-ah… well… supposedly the barrier is supposed to separate our world from the human world… But according to Isa, there is a human running amuck and killing innocent monsters. It’s some pretty scary stuff. Maybe there is a hole in the barrier? Or the humans are coming down to take over? I honestly have no clue myself, but… we should really investigate!”Nicena seconded his suggestion. She wasn’t very sure about taking over the Underground, seeing that the Surface was fabled for it’s near limitless space, but killing monsters was a definite danger. There was only a finite amount of monsters down here, and their numbers weren’t very plentiful. Even a few lives lost would be detrimental to the community as a whole, not to mention the relationships shattered by their deaths.
”That sounds like a good idea in theory… but let’s just find out what’s going on around here. If monsters are really being killed by humans..,” she trailed off, using her tail to signal Dorkle to follow her as she quickly moved over to the front desk to check out the book on metallurgy, thanking the librarian with a slightly strained smile. After stuffing the book into her Mysterious Bag of Infinite Space™, she pawed her way towards the exit of the library.
”...Well, I hope those rumors aren’t true,” she finished with a frown. After a moment of deliberation, she asked Dorkle one last question.
”I’m going to go out of the city and check if the warnings are more than just mere speculation, want to come with?”Usually, she would have kept Dorkle out such a dangerous situation, but it might be better to have him around. After all, if she died and proved the rumors to be true, there would be someone to rush back to the city and alert the Royal Guard.
Dorkle really wanted to go with Miss Nicena to go investigate but he remembered that he had to work. He sighed,
“I want to go, but I have to wait until my shift is over…”He glanced over at the clock by the front desk. It was still a while before his parents would take over and he definitely could not leave the library alone.
“I guess I’ll join you later, Miss Nicena. If you’re going now, please be careful.”The canine nodded in understanding, adjusting the straps on her bag as she gave Dorkle a knowing grin.
”Alright then, wish me luck!” Nicena said cheerfully, waving goodbye with her tail as she set off towards the outskirts. With a heart full of hope and a bag full of dreams, the dog monster ran outwards to meet what awaited her.
