A heavy roar of machinery rang through the underground caverns. Levians, a mole-ish looking race whose main source of economy is mining and harvesting precious stones, were bustling to and fro managing their own task in the diggings. Large boring drills whined and whirred as they tore through the dirt, making large channels. Brax, a Tunneling Manager, walked past all of this to meet with the operation Foreman.

“YOU WANTED ME FOR SOMETHING!” Brax shouted over the equipment.

“YEAH! I NEED YOU AND YOUR CREW TO FINISH THAT RESERVIOR.” The foreman was a scraggly fellow, with many years of wear and tear from mining. He took his job seriously, maybe, sometimes, too seriously. “THAT COMPANY WE HIRED, THOSE GRUB WORMS, COULDN’T FINISH THE SMELTIN’ RESERVIOR. I BROUGHT THEM BACK TO FIX THE BLASTED DAM.”

“FIX THE DAM?”

“YEAH, SULLIVAN NOTICED A CRIBBIN’ LAVA LEAK THIS MORNING. BY THE TIME THEY GOT HERE TO FIX IT, WE HAD A SMALL SMELTIN’ LAVA FALL.”

“IF THEIR FIXING IT WHY DO WE NEED TO FINISH THE RESERVIOR SO FAST?”

Brax ran off to gather his crewmates. They had dug out a reservoir once, but it had taken them a long time to do it. They didn’t have licenses for heavy equipment at the time and they were still pretty new as a team together. It was hard work, but it was good work. They grew together.

“Crystal, Morgan, Trever, Kerog, I need you guys over here!” Brax waved them over. “We gotta finish that reservoir that Brill-Ian .T Dams and Reservoirs started. Crystal, I need you to get us the maps and layouts for the reservoir. Trever and Morgan I need you guys to get your men and equipment ready to head down to the site. Kerog I need your boring crew to shuttle Trever and Morgan’s guys down there.”

“You got it boss!” Crystal ran off.

“I dig it!” Trever chuckled.

“Locked, cocked, and ready to rock!” Kerog ran to his crew.

While everyone was boring out the main reservoir and preparing to dig air holes, Brax and Crystal studied the layout.

“This doesn’t look big enough.” Crystal bit her lip.

“I just noticed that too. But they have more air holes in the ceiling. Why would you do that other than…” Brax didn’t finish his sentence. He got lost in his own thoughts.

“You think they were planning on it over flowing and airing out on the surface?” Crystal pondered.

“I’m wondering.” Brax looked out at the dugout. “It needs to be bigger. Crystal, see what you can work on, I gotta go check in with Trever.”

Crystal grabbed the blueprints, “I’m on it Brax.”

Brax walked off the observation level and toward Trever’s crew.

“Yo, Brax!”

“What’s up, Ker?”

“My guys finished the rows BIT had planned, but this reservoir needs to be bigger, don’t it?”

“Yeah, talk with Crystal, she’s redrawing it right now.” Kerog walked off to see Crystal. Trever walked up to Brax.

“My guys are all ready. It might be a tough dig, Othello tells me the soil further up is still hard as a rock.”

“Report to me when you can. I’ve got Crystal making a new design, we’ll get you a drawing here shortly.”

«»

“Only planting potatoes and peanuts is a boring garden.” Thought a Smidgen as he kneeled and dug feistily at the rock-hard dirt. Being a shorter race in the world of Oogarel, Smidgens found their fulfilment in cooking and gardening. In fact, Smidgens were known to have the finest foods and most luscious gardens of any other race, yet this village found it difficult to grow a single potato. “I wish we had some decent soil.”

He tried to make his job merry by humming a tune that he heard when he was a little boy. As he dug and carved away at the dirt, something unusual happened.

“Is there an earthquake?”

The ground beneath him began to heave and pitch. The Smidgen jumped from where he was and narrowly landed on his feet, just before falling backwards out of pure astonishment. Directly in front of him, where he had been kneeling, was the top half of a mining Levian.

The Levian scurried back down the hole to the reservoir where he’d begun his dig. When he emerged from his tunnel he shouted, “WHERE’S TREVER!?”

The crew heard the frantic note in his voice and began looking high and low. One finally shouted, “HE’S COMING!”

Trever was running up still as the Levian shouted, “WE HAVE A SMIDGEN VILLAGE UP THERE!”

“WHAT!? YOU’RE SLAGGING ME!”

“NOO, JUST SAW IT FOR MYSELF.”

Trever ran off. He got to Brax’s station panting and heaving. “We…broke through…but there’s…a…Smidgen village…at the top!” He managed.

“WHAT!?” Brax almost blew a fuse. “You mean BIT put the reservoir right under a Smidgen village!”

“It has to be a mistake.” Crystal said, “Maybe it’s a new village.”
“Even if it was, they weren’t building the dam and reservoir long enough for a whole

village to ‘suddenly’ establish up there!” Brax was starting to panic. “Somebody messed up!” Brax picked up a communication speaker and asked for a line to Smorkin.
“YEAH? WHAT’S UP?”
“We have a Smidgen village right above the reservoir, we need to relocate the reservoir.”

“I’VE GOT BAD NEWS; THIS RESERVOIR IS WEAKER THAN I THOUGHT. YOU MAY ONLY HAVE ANOTHER TWELVE HOURS OR LESS BEFORE SHE BREAKS. YOU NEED TO EVACUATE THE VILLAGE. THERE’S NOTHING WE CAN DO BUT MAKE THE RESERVOIR BIGGER AND HOPE IT DOESN’T DAMAGE THAT VILLAGE TOO MUCH.”

“Pesticide.” Brax pursed his lips, “Okay boss.” Brax hung up the communicator and stood for a few seconds thinking. “Trever, take me to the tunnel.”

Brax climbed up to the surface to find, not only the one Smidgen that had been there earlier, but now a crowd of Smidgens.

“Diamonds in the rough.” Brax muttered. “Hello, everyone.”

The Smidgens just stared at him, expectantly.

“Is there a mayor, or someone who is in charge of this village, here?” Brax asked the crowd.

“I’m the mayor’s son,” one of the Smidgen’s stepped forward.

“I guess that’d work.” Brax bit his lip. “Your village is in danger. Right now, directly below you, we are building a lava reservoir, and we don’t have time enough to redirect the lava flow.”

“How did this happen?” The mayor’s son asked.

“The mining company I work for hired someone to build them a reservoir and dam for the lava, their dam is breaking and they didn’t finish the reservoir. We are trying to finish the reservoir presently, that’s how come we surfaced. We make overflow holes to compensate for excess lava flow. You’re all in danger of lava overflow, you need to evacuate the village. My men and I can help, but you need to start soon, we only have a maximum of twelve hours.”

“That’s not a lot of time,” The mayor’s son started to walk through the crowd. “Can you come with me and tell that to the mayor?”

“Yeah,” Brax turned to Trever. “Trever, tell Morgan and Kerog that I want the guys to work as hard and fast as they can for six more hours, after that we need to evacuate the reservoir, and tell Crystal to be on alert for a code red.”

“You got it, Brax.” Trever tunneled back down to relay the message.

Within minutes the mayor was able to relay the message to the whole village. Brax gathered up some men and trucks and began hauling Smidgens and some of their belongings out of the valley.

“Please, ma’am, take only what you can be of use to you. There’s only so much space and we have little time.” Brax had to tell an elderly Smidgenette as she clung to some belongings that were family heirlooms. Several times in the next three hours, Brax stood, everyone zooming past him, the rumble of the trucks roaring away from the village stuffed to the gills with helpless Smidgens and their families, feeling horrible. “Why does it have to be like this?” He asked himself. “What did these poor people do to deserve this! To be taken from house and home.” He wanted to cry for the people, but he was too busy to think about it for too long.

At the four-hour mark, Brax went back down to see how things were underground.

“We’re almost there I think,” Kerog reported. “The boring machines have a few more passes then I can delegate my men to help Trever’s.”

“I want you to split them half and half. I need more people and equipment up top, transporting Smidgens out of the village.”

“Sounds like a plan. How’s the dam holding up?”

“Well—” At that moment there was a ringing of the communicator. Crystal picked it up, spoke for a second or two then shouted out:

“Brax! It’s Smorkin!”

Brax raced to the communicator, “Yes, sir?”

“BAD NEWS BRAX, THE DAM IS LEAKING BIG TIME.” The machinery that had been rumbling in the back died down now. “We’re having to evacuate the dam site. It could bust lose any minute. I want you to get your people out of there, ASAP.”

“Yes, sir.” Brax began to sweat. How was he going to get all of his men and the Smidgens out in time?

“OH, SLAG! The dam just broke!” Smorkin hollered. “Brax get your team out of there, NOW!”

Brax hung up the communicator and hollered out to his crew, “AS MANY OF YOU THAT CAN FIT, GET ONTO THE BORING MACHINES NOW, WE NEED TO EVACUATE. DRIVERS! I WANT YOU TO BORE TO THE SURFACE, LET’S GET TO THE VILLAGE AND EVACUATE BY THE VALLEY, WE’LL FIND THE MINING ENTRANCE LATER. LET’S MOVE!”

For the next ten minutes Levians were jumping on to machines and being driven out of the reservoir. Brax was riding on the last truck and saw, just as they began tunneling, the lava race into the reservoir faster than a raging river. He gulped.

They broke to the surface and tore through the walls of an abandoned Smidgen house. Once outside, Brax hopped off the machine.

“Trever, what’s the situation up here? The lava has reached the reservoir.”

“Oh, pesticide! We should be good, the second to last truck load left not two minutes ago. The last truck will be here in a minute or so.”

“We need the people to start walking,” Brax walked up to the crowd of Smidgens. “I’m so sorry, everyone, but we need you to start walking to safety. Take only what you can easily carry, the lava is in the reservoir below us.” Brax grabbed a few items that some of the Smidgens couldn’t carry and lead the way. He set the pace fast, hoping they could keep up.

Over the hill on the far side of town the truck neared. Brax sighed heavily, he looked back to the people behind him and saw smoldering orange dots scattered throughout the village. The lava! Brax knew it could take as little as twenty minutes for the lava to fill the whole village, and they were close to many of the air holes right where they were.

“In the truck, in the truck. There you go ma’am. In you go young man. Thank you, sir!” Brax made sure everyone was in. He looked about him and saw a cluster of three or four Smidgens a little way off. “Trever come with me!” Brax ran toward the cluster.

“Let’s go!” He shouted to the driver.

The truck lurched and zoomed to the edge of town. Brax could see the lava consuming stores, gardens, and homes. Once they reached the save zone, Brax was the first one off to help people down.

“Thank you!” “You saved us!” Thank you so much.” People said to Brax and his crew. “How can you say that?” Brax asked the mayor, as he helped him off the truck last. “Because this ‘accident’ has saved our tiny village.”
“What do you mean?”

“Look down there,” The mayor pointed to the valley covered in lava that was a light brown. “For sixty-eight years, our forefathers seeded, watered, nurtured, and harvested from that valley below us. Continuously, year after year. It wasn’t until seven years ago that the village council and I discovered we were doing wrong. We had been instructed by the Conductor to leave the soil to rest every seventh year. Yet, we and our forefathers had either ignored this instruction or had been ignorant of it. That same year, we stopped tending the soil, but the damage was done. After the many years of mistreatment, we were rightly punished with unusable soil. What you see in the valley now is a hard lesson and the Conductor’s great mercy. He has revitalized our soil by the invading lava. Yes, we will have to rebuild our homes and we have lost things today that we may never get back. However, our lives have been spared and we can rebuild our village. That is why we rejoice and thank you.”

Brax sheepishly grinned. He was happy for the village, but he knew his company was responsible for the damages.

“BRAX!” Smorkin was hanging out of the side of a truck that was rising over the hill.

“Yes, sir?”

“Is everybody safe? I’ve got our lawyer working out a case against Brill-Ian .T, I’ve put the Smidgen village into the case, Brill-Ian .T is gonna pay through the nose for this one.” Smorkin looked around. “You did a good job kid, despite the big sumph that happened.”

Brax grinned and looked over the smoldering valley. He could hear nothing but the loud garbled discussion from the Smidgens behind him, as he thought of the hard work they had before them.

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