"~I am a Dwarf and I'm digging a hole, diggy diggy hole, diggy diggy hole~"
With each merry note, a bare-chested Dwarf swung his pickaxe, removing chunks of rock and mud from the ground. As he stood back up to wipe the sweat off his forehead, a large thump sounded by, followed by a large cloud of dust. "Kid, how's it looking? Soil's good enough to build upon?"
Giving a weird gaze to the hulking figure of the Orc that landed nearby, Simon continued his digging, before picking up a clod of pale grey rock and sticking it into his mouth. "Suck, suck, mhmm, yeah. The rocks here do not have a high hardness value, but they do compensate for being strong. A large surge of pressure will not cause the surrounding area to destabilise itself, causing a lower chance of structural integrity failure. But from what I can taste, suck, suck, it seems to me that if you go around more than 5 km deep, ermmm, you might fall into lava..."
Eyes rising up in surprise, Titus couldn't help but be amazed at the young stripling's innate sense of the Earth. Despite living for over 600 years, I still cannot find out how on Terra Dwarves seem to have good senses with mining. It's almost like as if they were–
"Hey boss, what'cha gonna do now? Most of us boys need to know for how long we have to stay in our rest shelters. Some of us are getting jumpy from staying still too long, if you know what I mean..."
A gruff-looking Wulfin landed near Titus, his one good eye sparkling with joy, he thought he lost long ago. Behind him, his mangled tail swept left to right rapidly in anticipation of the new purpose they've been given. Staring silently for a long time, Titus let out a breath of discontent. The interruption from the old Wulfin had broken his train of thought, leading him to forget what he was thinking. Damn it, I was just about to grasp a crucial link! If only the Administrator was not locked in his eternal slumber...
Shaking his head, Titus's eyes landed back upon Simon, staring quizzically at the spitting Dwarf. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be, you know, currently doing metallurgy?"
"Meta-what now?"
"Urgh! The study of metals needed for the hull of the rocket ship?"
Slapping his forehead, Simon finally realised what Titus was talking about. "Oh, about that. I've been currently testing upon several different metals ranging from good old iron all the way to awesome shit like Adamantium and Orichalcum. And boy, do I have stories to tell you..."
Eyes sparkling with fervour, Simon began his long rant on what he had discovered. "You see, I initially thought that good old iron would be enough for us to build our rocket, cause you know, it's cheap and easy for us to use. But after going through some books from the Library of Alexandria regarding what the properties of these metals were like, I realised that I knew jack shit. Reading through some of the books, on found out why they never used iron or steel for their shops to the Moon: it was too dang heavy! I mean, it was so heavy that they needed the equivalent of around 1000 Elder Fire Ftagons to lift them to escape the world's 'gravity' (something that I think Celine is trying to find out)."
Though here, Simon's head drooped in despair. "But when I wanted to find out what other metals were used to create the rockets, other than iron and steel, none of them even matched up! I mean, what is 'titanium' or 'tungsten'? Is 'platinum' Mythril!? Urgh, Goddess, what am I supposed to do? So I decided the next best alternative: experimentation! But getting some samples was a vital pain up my arse! I mean, 2 Gold coins per kilo of Adamantium, 3.7 for Mythril!? Why don't they go rob a bank!? Urgh, despite getting samples from the Dwarves, I still needed to process them. Can you believe it? They sent us the raw ones!? If it wasn't for the fact that I had the hammer, we would've needed at least an industrial forge capable of heating up to 7500°C for pressing the ores. And the only ones capable of building such a vast array of machinery are the dam Dwarves!"
Titus wanted to interject that he was also a Dwarf, but kept his mouth shut when he saw how riled up Simon was. Please, anybody, come and save me...
Unable to beat up Simon into pulp due to him being the 'elder' here, Titus prayed that someone would come and save him from this torture.
And save him they did
"Lord Simon, Lord Titus, Lord Duncan wants to see you sires in the meeting hall (or that's what they call it...)"
Thank Terra someone came!