Wormer waited until his worm elevator had lowered himself fully to the ground of his underground lair before he got off. Once he was finally lowered, he began to make his way quickly down the corridors of his home. He made his way towards a specific place; his steps filled purpose.

  He eventually reached where he was going, passing several chambers filled with things made of his twisting of the word natural form. The room Wormer had been heading towards was a massive chamber with a series of rock bridges hanging over a large chamber filled with worms covered in different types of rock.

  Wormer fast walked across the bridges above the chamber of worms until he reached the platform at the center of the rock bridges. Once on the center platform, he went directly to a stone table that had nothing at the moment. Once he was there, he raised his staff high in the air and waved the head of his staff over the table, causing a larva of a worm to appear in the table.

  Once the baby larva was on the table, he laid his staff down and got to work molding the worm to what he would need to lay siege to the realm of the undead. As he stretched and added the powers of the earth to the worm, getting it ready to lead its fellow siege worms against the undead, his mind began to wander to the past.

  As Wormer had done the task he was doing now so many times now, it was second nature to him, so he could risk his mind wandering. He remembered back in the old days before elders like Grekal respected him as an equal and his own kin loved him. Though such times were long gone and his name was now spoken in hushed whispers by his kin if they spoke his name at all.

  Back in those days, he was an elder of one of the Bug Pixie clans. The bug pixie clans helped to shepherd different insects of the forest into leaving in harmony with one another and to not let their drive for more to burn the forest to great. For those insect pixies that watched over hives, their politics involved convincing Queens what was best for their hives.

  Well, his clan had watched over the worms beneath the soil, making sure the worms weren't disturbed in their duty of keeping the soul healthy. So that they were not over hunted by those that feed on the worms for sustenance. He had been his clan's elder of Shepard's, the grasspixie equivalent of the elder of farmers.

  He had done his duty well for many decades without issue until a disaster struck. A particular species of bird with an obsession for worms had entered the forest and had immediately begun overhunting the worm population. His clan, among the other worm clans decades to the duty, had tried to stop them, but they had strange breaks dedicated specifically to searching out worms.

  So by the time the fairies of his clan found out the birds had arrived and they had begun moving to try and drive them off, they were already long gone with several worms in their beak. He, as the elder of Shepard's for the Worm Pixie clan, had to deal with this problem. So he did use the magic inherited from his pixie clan to heal the worms; instead, he used the magic to change them into another kind of worm.

  Wormer created through this act a kind of parasitic worm that looked no different from the worm it was originally born from. This way, when the race of worm-obsessed birds came to eat worms, they ate the parasitic ones as much as the regular ones. This caused several of the birds to die as the parasitic worms ate them from the inside out.

  This eventually caused the specific bird breed to choose to focus on other insects besides worms, as they didn't know which worm would be there last. Though once the rest of his clan had found out what he had done, they had been horrified as each pixie clan had a taboo they could not break.

  The worm pixie clans did not change the worms they cared for. By creating his parasitic breed of worms, he had broken that taboo completely, even if it had saved the worms they were to care for from extinction. So he was exiled from his clan and declared dark fey. Now the only thing he has are the worms he continues to make with the staff made from the last of his parasitic worms, as the rest had been tracked down and killed by his former clan.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The only reprieve he has from his constant fiddling with his fraction and alteration of worms is when he is hired to wage war in the ever-ongoing conflicts in the magic woods. "Hmmm, it's been a truly long time since I thought of my old clan." Wormer said to himself before thinking about it. "It must be being hired by my former friend Grekal from those days that brought those memories to the surface." Wormer said to himself before he focused back on his work.

  Soon after he had refocused back on his work, he was done. He looked at his creation that he was going to use to lay siege on the undead through the underground of their new kingdom. The worm had a maw made up of sharp black stone talons, allowing it to easily dig through any earth as well as fight off any threat at its front. Its body was also covered in a gray stone-like material that would toughen it against anyone that tried to kill it.

  With the creature looking ready to fight, he ordered towards one of the tunnels opposite the one he came through. Once it started to squirm through the tunnel, he followed after it after he picked up his worm staff. Once the siege worm had traveled to a certain point, he offset it to stop, then activated his skill REPLiCATE, causing a copy of the original siege worm to fill the passageway.

  Then Wormer ordered the original siege worm to start digging towards the area where the undead were. Then, after the worm had started digging, he activated a second skill, ENLARGE, on the second worm, causing it to grow bigger and bigger as it dug until the original siege worm was creating a large corridor for the rest of its replicants to follow after it.

  Wormer got onto one of the replicants of the siege worm and used it as a mount as he fellowed after the rest of the siege worm army. Meanwhile, in the underground of Maxwell's kingdom, a certain plant was enduring its depression.

  The only defender left among the undead elementals that were to defend the kingdom of the skull was Maxwell. It had grown deep under the ground, slowly combining as it was the only way to keep its plant-like form. The smog root hands had been the undead elemental that had benefited the most from the grow your lawn policy.

  As the land under the skull Maxwell had turned into a place that slowly expanded into undead grasslands, the roots had benefited from a case of double growth as they still functioned as plants, unlike their fellow undead insects, who acted as insects. Which meant that not only did more smog roots first be born under ground, but those that were already there grew bigger and connected to others of their kind.

  So by the time the grand hunt of the Green Pixies invaded, there was not an inch below ground where the smog root fist was not buried deep. So they had waited for the order to plunge their hands from the ground and drag the invaders deep into the earth. But that order never came; instead, they watched as their fellow elementals were slain to the last, and those that came after them were called and then killed as well.

  But they were not called; even when the enemy held their weapons upon the ruler personally, they were not called. Now instead they reached deep into their power and called upon their magical might rather than call upon their aid. So the legion of smog root hands that lay below the earth were waiting for new undead elementals to be born and replace the ones that had fallen and for the one that constantly buzzed above to rebuild its swarm and attack once again.

  They waited below, knowing they were failures, for they were so insignificant that even the threat of destruction had not caused their ruler to call upon them. The sadness that the roots below would never get to prove their worth for the kingdom was complete and total, then they felt it a shaking that ran through the earth and was slowly making its way closer toward them.

  Joyed soon filled the smog roots as they realized what was happening: the enemies attack from above had failed, so now they wish to try and attack from below. They did not know that they, the smog roots, waited eagerly to prove their worth to the kingdom that they belonged to.

  Soon an air of anticipation built up as the waves were felt closer and closer. Soon enough, with one giant crash, a creature with razor-sharp talons that made up most of its head tried to barrel ways up into the kingdom only to find its path impeded. Before the creatures knew what was going on, the roots were upon it, their hands reaching, grasping, pulling, and digging into pulling apart the roots in total ecstasy as they bathed in the blood, showing their ruler they were defenders of the kingdom.

  Soon there was nothing left of the biggest of the attacker but bloody chunks. Sadily, the rest of the stanpede that followed him did not see the danger in time and soon enjoyed him being torn apart by the blood thirst roots. The only one to escape was one siege worm that turned around with a strange man on the worm's back that kept urging his mount to go faster as he looked back at the slaughter unfolding in shocked terror.