The mecha walked along the cold gloomy streets, the quartet hitching a ride on it. As it walked past the red streetlights, warmth radiated from the lights.

'Ish warm!' thought Yue.

She had an urge to dismantle the lamppost to see how it worked, but she refrained. That would be very rude. The bunny looked to the side of the cockpit only see see that Yowi was already fast asleep. Not unexpected. That cat loves to sleep all day.

On the mecha, Poopy who sat atop felt rather nervous. Those 'short humans' weren't going to try capturing it, were they? Buggy who was beside the golem was at ease, drowsing off shortly.

Yue was the only one of the four who was excited. The machine continued to rumble along the streets, past taverns full of cheerful drunk dwarves, shops selling all kinds of crafting material and residential homes. The shops were full of tempting materials, but no, she was looking for something else. As the Yue continued to look around, a dwarf on the streets approached her.

"Eyyy! That's a nice machine you got there little bunny!" said the little man. He looked drunk, his grinning face red as the vial of red wine he had in hand. He was dressed in baggy pants that looked far too large for him and a shirt draped by a jacket. They were worn down by time and patched with thread at certain areas, but were still very clean and ironed neatly.

"Yay! Tank yuu!" smiled the bunny. To get her mecha praised by a dwarf meant a lot to her.

"Hick!" the dwarf hiccuped. "Want to come over to my workshop? We can compare notes!"

"Okie!" cheered the bunny enthusiastically.

As the dwarf led the crude mecha to his workshop, the other dwarves looked at them oddly.

~~~~~

"Here is my humble workshop! BREEEGH!" burped the now much more sober dwarf.

Yue looked at the building, a little speechless. She was led by the dwarf into a district filled with old looking brick houses. This building took it a step further: there was a huge hole blown in the roof and the metal door was covered in dents. A dusty board was stuck neatly above the door, with 'Urgo's Repairs' written neatly on it. Humble indeed.

The dwarf opened the door, the mecha following right after. The building had only a single room. There was a worktable at the corner of the room covered in all sorts of tools, materials and papers. Under the hole in the roof was another mecha, this one 2 metres tall. It was somewhat like Yue's mecha, with only a torso with arms and legs. The legs were a lot stubbier but the arms were a lot longer. The plating was a lot thicker and more refined. There were odd machines of all sorts packed neatly near another corner as well. Yue noted the lack of a bed in the room.

"You don't mind me using Inspect on your little machine do you?" asked the dwarf to the bunny.

"Ish okay." said Yue.

The dwarf's eyes seemed to glow in excitement as he put his hands to the crude machine.

"Amazing! A gyro lead ball from stabilisation... The leg machinery... such incredible design! I could certainly use such a design to make mine run faster and jump higher..." the dwarf began to mutter excitedly.

Yue had gotten the impression that this dwarf probably wasn't the most advanced of them all. She was sure a well learnt dwarf would not be this impressed. Still, she felt like it would be rude to leave so suddenly now that she accepted his invitation. The dwarf ran to his worktable and began to scribble notes hurriedly.

It took a good five minutes before the dwarf was done.

"I'm done! Here, in exchange, I have a stack of notes about dwarven technology. It would be rude to be the only person benefiting here." said the dwarf.

Yue was shocked. Weren't the dwarves very secretive about their crafts? Seeing her expression, the dwarf sighed.

"As you might see, I'm not the most well off of all dwarves. The times are getting tough with the lack of food and materials. Our heritage might be important, but in the end, being alive is the top priority."

"But... why yuu trad fur Yue machine notes insted of food?" Yue was confused.

"Down here, us lower classes folk make a living through mining and hunting. A more powerful machine will let us hunt more and protect us while mining." sighed the dwarf. The smile glued on his face faded, leaving behind a weathered and tired look. He walked slowly to the mecha in the centre of the room and patted it lovingly.

"This beauty here... She's the result of all of us peasant dwarves' effort. We've been sharing notes to allow all of us to make better machines." the dwarf said proudly.

"Mine and hant need powurl-ful meecha?" asked Yue.

"Heh." the dwarf smiled, but in a self-deprecating way. "Let us go to the wild caves. You'll see what we face there."

The dwarf hopped into the cockpit of his mecha, beckoning to to Yue with a mecha hand.

"Huddle up! This wonderful machine has a built in portal linker!" shouted the dwarf.

"Okie! Yue ish hug dwa-waff machin!" squeaked Yue as her mecha ran up to be grabbed by the dwarf's.

In a flash, both of the machines disappeared.