“So the birds and the clankers are talking? Odd. You wouldn’t think those two would even consider the other.” Madam Kilj murmurs to herself as she reclined upon her personal throne within her house in the Kobold town of Lorse.
The town was remote, even for the generally segregated Kobold communities. The newest of Kobold dwellings, once the cavern had been discovered far to the south of the Death Moutnains Madam Kilj had leapt for it, flooding it with the majority of her people that were able to be moved.
Almost over night the second largest Kobold dwelling (and most refined due to Kilj’s distaste for flesh constructs) had sprung up. From there the old Kobold had followed standard procedure and her people had spread the usual tunnels for miles around, both close to the surface and deep towards the core.
Waving her hand, the gang leader dismisses the two Kobolds with orders to relay this information. Their anonymity was in part due to their scientists and military leaders, but the majority of it was due to them keeping a watchful eye upon the upper races. They needed to know what they were hiding from, after all.
“You.” She says, pointing towards a Kobold dressed in her organisation’s garb that identified him as a translator. “Have two guards accompany you to where he meeting is being held. If it is on the ground, observe and report. If not, gather as much as you can.” She orders, the Kobold in question bowing and scraping as he leaves the expansive, shiny room, gesturing towards the two guards at the door to find replacements and accompany him.
——-
Far to the north, deep below the Death Mountains in the city of Ghilt, Weaver Greenslash snarled our of frustration as his creation continued to defy him.
Before him was a massive abomination of flesh, dark iron and chemicals. Many times the size of the largest Kobold, the abomination was horrific to all but his eyes. It resembled a centaur in a way, with a titanic, vertical four armed gorse attatched to a longer, horizontal six legged body that tapered off into a powerful tail twice as tall and three times as thick as a Kobold.
Made from the stitched together corpses of an entire city of Kobolds, each meticulously (and messily) carved up to suit the needs of Weaver. Dark iron pillars emerged from the body at the joints, acting as arm thick staples to keep the structure stable. These beams of metal ran all throughout his creation, forming the skeletal structure of the behemoth. Jagged claws and spikes emerged almost haphazardly from the massive being’s body, the dark iron piercing the preserved flesh.
For blood the beast had the Kobold’s signature neon green cocktail of chemicals, dubbed Corruption. No one is quite sure where it came from, but all those involved with it find themselves enamoured. Not only was the liquid normally high corrosive, something the flesh of the behemoth had been made resistant against, but it had certain... effects upon dead flesh. As in, the ‘suddenly moving’ kind of effect.
Because of this large, empty pipes emerge from and enter the behemoth from all over, the pipes themselves the size of Greenslash. This was supposed to be the final stage where they found themselves filled, but instead of watching his darling child come to life before him Greenslash found himself gnashing his teeth in frustration.
He hadn’t counted upon the dead flesh’s adaptation backfiring on him. No matter how much he had poured into his creation, it just absorbed the liquid and remained still.
“You know what?” Mutters Greenslash as he hefts a large, sealed pipe hanging from the ceiling of his dim laboratory. “I did not abduct and slaughter half a city just to watch you fail. Do you know how many meals that was?! So you’re gonna move, and you’re gonna break Sneakstab.” He rambles as he hoists the pipe using his prosthetic and placed it against a port in the side of the beast’s mishappen, many eyed head.
Once the pipe was sealed and opened, Greenslash darted back and heaved with all his might against a lever placed in the end of the wall. The leaver slowly ticked down, and with each increment the pipe from the wall filled with Corruption, until the lever reached as far as it could go and Corruption roared through the pipe and into the body of the abomination, external pipes rapidly filling one by one.
Panting at the exertion, Greenslash crouched and shielded his eyes against the intense glow of the Corruption. For almost five minutes he waited, losing hope with each second. Reaching out towards the lever, he prepares to shut it off.
Then his creation moved, thrashing and twisting against the various cables and restraints, letting out a distorted roar as different vocal cords from much smaller beings dealt with the air escaping the monster.
Greenslash found himself increasingly fortunate that he had remembered to restrain this creation, as even when fully restrained in the strongest of resources he could get his hands on the monster’s sheer strength was enough to have the metal groan in protest.
Getting over his shock, Weaver couldn’t help but feel a grin overtake his face. Sure the beast was wild now, but with enough time and experimentation, he could find a way to control it. And when he did that, no council member could stand in his way.