Blowing stuff up for SCIENCE!

[Hellbender]

// Hang on, Ah'm almost there, // comes Hellbender's attenuated radio signal.

His grinders decouple momentarily to spare their transmissions as he hits the anomalous rock layer--it's both denser and softer than the covering sandstone. He revvs up his grinders again and sucks a good sample into his ore bins; the mineral has an odd taste, like river mud, yet somewhat more desirable. The Gillanese mining computers identify the mineral easily, yet the name means nothing to Hellbender.

On the Decepticon broadband, Hellbender asks, baffled, // Any of y'all know what <symbol> is? 'Cause whatever it is, I found a whole bunch of it. All this here local computer will tell me is its a 'black combustible sedimentary rock composed primarily of carbon along with other elements, chiefly sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen'.! All Ah know is we don't have nothin' like it back home on Cybertron. Hope it's useful. //

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OOC: Hellbender has found a seam of bituminous coal

[Long Range]

//From what I hear, sounds like it could be explosive. Don't explode.// Long Range transmits, finished transforming and now sitting back down agianst the side of a hill.

[Hellbender]

// Yeah, Ah got some warning messages about not setting it on fire. Seems like the stuff will burn underground for a long time, // Hellbender replies. // Comin' up. //

Hellbender backs out of the coal seam and twists his head to point upwards, then starts grinding his way through the rock, gravel, earth. He emerges well downhill of Long Range in a shower of gravel.

The mining worm transforms;; Hellbender the robot climbs back up the hill to Long Range. He holds out two hands full of a dull black rock. "This here is the stuff Ah found. Don't look like much, does it?"

[Long Range]

Long Range takes one of the lumps of rock and studies it. Not that he's going to learn anything from it, but he hasn't seen it before and its mildly intersting.

"Who knows, maybe Mixmaster will actually be able to do something with it. I heard that on earth the Decepticons managed to convert human energy sources into Energon." He says, putting the lump aside. He doubts Hellbender wants it back.

[Hellbender]

Hellbender stashes the rest of samples he'd pulled out of his ore bins and says, "Well, Ah figure one or the other of our engineers can manage it. Gonna take some samples to Mixmaster and Shockwave."

The big black Transformer works his elbow joints and flexes his fingers. "Ah'm done here, gonna mosey back. Thanks again for the trouble, Long Range. Lookin' forward to fightin' alongside you s'more."

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ready to wind up here?

[Long Range]

"As do I, Hellbender, but its unlikely. I'm mostly wasted on the front line, really." Long Range says as he slowly pushes himself off the slope and back up to his feet.

"See you around, Hellbender."

__________________

About ready, yes.