The Diamond Dog's Guide to Engineering

by Tolerance

Brawlers, Bruises, Business.

For the second time today, Aaron found himself waking up in a weird place. Unlike the calm, refreshing wake-up earlier though, this one was filled with damp musky dogs of some sort. They spoke English for some reason, sure. No reason to hold that against them. They also walked around on two legs for the most part. Perfectly natural. They seemed to want to dig everywhere. Searching for stuff burying stuff, pretty normal for most dogs, right?

What worried Aaron was, that despite all the digging, some of which was done haphazardly through what he suspected were load-bearing walls, was that he was locked up in a cage that he could barely stand up in. Down here, with the dogs, heavens-knows how far beneath the surface. Slowly waiting for the moment when enough holes were made to weaken the earthen infrastructure and doom them all to a crushing death.

Seriously. Aaron was pretty sure that the cell door was the only thing holding up the place. The metal was only mostly rusted. the hinges could barely be defined as such, and the door itself didn't even fit in the doorway properly. Aaron was pretty sure that he wasn't a carpenter, or a blacksmith, but even he could tell that these creatures were downright awful when it came to anything other than their little excavation hobby.

There were other cages too, mostly in the same condition, but for the moment he couldn't see anything inside of them. They probably weren't meant to hold any of the dogs though, since they could probably dig their way out just as the did everything else.

Aaron briefly wondered if he should try the same or take his chances removing the pins in the hinges. A change in everyone's behavior got his attention, some of them muttering something about a 'boss'. He soon figured out why, when the normal dogs were eventually outnumbered with their larger, muscled cousins. Guards wearing armor that was in far better condition than the stuff his cell was made of, approached both sides of the dungeon.

Instead of one boss, there appeared to be three. All three seemed to be of equal standing, but Aaron ready to start questioning the hierarchy just yet.

"What meaning of this?" The light-grey one wearing a red vest asked.

"Found it outside boss." said one of the dogs standing behind them. Aaron thought he recognized him from earlier.

"Yes, but look at it. scrawny for slave, yes. But barely fit in cave!" said the shortest one bearing the blue vest.

"Tell me slave," This one was tawny female wearing a green vest. "can you dig?"

"Well I don't know, I've never-"

"Yes or no!" Shouted the shorty.

"Um, no, then. I guess."

"Then you know how to find gems, yes?"

"I, what?" Aaron replied.

The short one just growled.

'Wonder if napoleon complex is a thing with these guys.' Aaron thought to himself. "Right, um, no to that one too."

"Then what good are you as slave?" Asked the Female. "Maybe we just eat you instead, then eat Watch Dog for being dumb."

"Now, now. Now sense eating, um, anyone" Aaron gulped. "Surely you guys do something other than just digging and gem-finding right?"

The three just burst out laughing, while the guards tried their best to suppress a chuckle. Aaron would probably join in too if it didn't sound like a bunch of hyenas waiting for their next meal.

"Oh, funny thing." Said Red-shirt.

"Yes." said Napoleon.

"True." Tawny replied, wiping a tear from her eye. "We decide to keep you around, Funny Thing."

"...Great?"

"For now." The three said in unison as the turned in left. There was no doubt in Aaron's mind that it was a threat.

"Great." Aaron repeated, albeit dejectedly. If there was one thing he wasn't, it was a comedian.

~~~~~

Aaron felt at the tender bumps on the back of his head while wondering when he'd received that injury. Whatever the headache that particular event was causing was nothing compared the the headache he was giving himself trying to figure a way out of this mess.

'First things, first. Information.' He thought to himself. Besides those three, there are a bunch of guards and a crap load of the smaller ones. Diggers maybe? If they were slaves too, maybe they had full metal cages elsewhere? Aaron looked around his own cage in more detail. The door was likely heavy, but the hinges looked fairly weak. Removing the pins or breaking the hinges outright may be plausible, but the noise that would make was sure to attract attention.

There was a smaller alcove in the wall behind him, maybe a foot in diameter, but that wasn't going to be of any use. Which meant if he probably wasn't going anywhere unless his captors let him out.

Aaron hoped the dogs know what a knock-knock joke was. Or if they even know what knocking was.

The number of worker/digger dogs dwindled as the 'day' wore on. Not that Aaron could tell what time it was without his watch. Whether they took it when they brought him here or what he hadn't a clue, but that seemed to be the only thing missing from his person. Everything else he had with him, he'd left with his bag at the cave entrance. If it was even still there.

Some more guards walked by, and Aaron briefly wandered if his time as jester was starting, when the Dogs brought what could only be their slaves in tow. The unfortunate species seemed to be some sort of pastel-furred miniature horse of varying colors. All of the older ones had different symbols tattoos on their backsides. 'Some sort of Identification?' Aaron thought.

"Oh, what? You giving my cell to someone else? What gives?" Some sort of pony with light-green coat and green-and-white stripped mane. shouted as they led him opposite of Aaron's cage. "Whoah, what the hay are you?" it asked after getting a good look at the human.

"I'm human, I guess."

"What the heck's a human? Wait, hold that thought." The other slaves locked securely in their cells, the guards turned to leave. "Hey, Burly! Yeah, you, you giant moron. Give me back my spoon."

The largest of the guards turned to the green equine. "So you dig out more? No!"

"Aww, come-on man. Don't be like that." He said as the guard turned away, ignoring him.

"Damn. it took me months to dig that out. Oh well, third times the charm, right?" the other captive said as he pulled another spoon from somewhere in his mane.

"You were saying?" Aaron prompted.

"Oh right. Um, my names Speara Mint. You where Human right?"

"No, I am a Human. my name is Aaron. Aaron Wendel."

"That's a bit of a mouthful isn't it? So Aaron, do you mind If I call you Aaron? What brings you down here to the depths of Tartarus? Enjoying the view?"

"Well, actually-"

A squeaky cart came rolled past, startling Mint into almost dropping his spoon.

"Shouldn't you be waiting until night-time to do that or something?"

"Listen, it took me three weeks to get as far as I did in your cell. I don't have time to waste. What would a hu-man know about digging anyway?"

"I know that you don't know how to dig very well."

"You try digging a hole with a spoon in your mouth!"

"Yeah, no. I'll pass."

"Suit yourself."

"So what happens when you get through that wall? Do you even know how far you have to dig?"

"Well, no. Not really. I know how thick the wall is on your side, but over here..."

"Right, well then. Say you do get out of the cell, what then?"

"Why do you want to know so bad Mr. Doesn't-want-to-help-dig? Got a hot date tonight?"

"I'm not sure, actually. I think I did. I mean my memory-"

"Whoah, didn't mean to open the floodgates on whatever sappy story you've got tucked away in that round head of yours, buddy. Don't want to throw my whole digging-groove off. Heh, digging groove."

"Okay, fine. I kinda want to get out of here myself."

"Oh yeah, then what's the plan big guy? Wanna distract the guards with the whole 'sick prisoner gag' and swipe the keys? It won't work, because news flash: The Diamond Dogs don't care about us."

"Yeah, yeah, just humor me. I think I've got an appointment as the court jester or whatever these dogs call it, and I'm not a funny person."

"Coulda fooled me."

"Maybe I should tell them where to find a real joker before they eat me?"

"Ugh, fine. I haven't really gotten that far, alright. This whole place is one big maze. The walls change constantly what with all the digging going on."

"So is there a map or...?"

"No only another Diamond Dog could point you the way out of here. Every pack's got it's own way of marking their territory, and that includes the way to the surface."

"So we've just got to take one of the dogs as a hostage or something and have them lead us out?"

"Good luck with that. As soon as you smuggle one away from the others weird things start to happen."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, they get dumber, or something. It's kind of hard to explain, but once a they get separated, the lone dog only cares about getting back to his pack. At least the smaller ones do. This whole thing is pointless anyway, and I'm just wasting my time before I. Start. Losing. My. Mind!" Mint said punctuating his words with every stroke of his make-shift shovel.

"Hmmm..." Aaron thought for a minute. "Why not just capture two?"

"Good luck with that, tough guy, I'll give you three, maybe four, weeks to figure out how you're going to pull that one off."

"I could probably do it tonight." Aaron stated, matter-of-factly.

Speara MInt stopped his digging and turned around, "Oh yeah? How?"

"Easy, I just gotta borrow your spoon for a minute."

Comments

[iloveportalz0r]

Needs editing

[NecromanCREEEEEE]

6804266 Not a bad story otherwise though.

[WorldWalker128]

So it seems the D-Dogs aren't the only dumb ones.