It began its life as others of its kind, eating the dead grass of the floor as it grew bigger. Instinctively knowing that once it had grown from its young age into an adult, it would be time to leave the grass and go to where the trees dwelled. Then its armor would be fully grown and its horn strong and sturdy. It would be able to challenge others of its kind for the right to sap from the tree and females.
But then something changed for it. The land around it grew darker with a dark smog covering everything, and the dead grass it ate from the ground had a tingle to its flower. As if it had a power despite it being long dead by the time it ate it. This was strange and almost made it leave earlier than it should in fear that these changes would bring harm to those of its kind. But in the end, it stayed, as despite the possible danger, there was opportunity for it.
Though it was not intelligent enough for such sophisticated concepts as opportunity. It could tell that the tingle within the dead grass was good. As its armor started to grow earlier, though, it was far paler than it should be, but that did not matter to it. What mattered was this special dead grass gave it an advantage over its rivals despite the dangers of the changing land. So, for a while, it did nothing but concern itself with gorging itself on the tasty dead grass.
Then it found something else: a small puddle of purple water that came up from the ground. There was never much of this purple water, but what little there was was deeply filling, and so it tried to find as much of this purple water as it could. So, it went on for it that the creature ate the tingling dead grass and drank as much of the purple water as it could, all while ignoring the battles going on around it. As they ignored it, though, there was more to it than it being hard to see in the necrotic smog that hid it.
All the strange things it devoured changed it. As its armor not only grew earlier but also tougher and paler. Its horn grew longer and sturdier as well as gaining a purple shade. It had become magical, not that it knew what such things meant, as it was far too concerned with the more basic needs, such as hunger. This all changed one day as it felt something it had felt before; the strange tingles that had become a part of it told it that rivals were appearing.
It raised its horn high in the air and waved it in the air in challenge to all beetles that would be nearby. None took him up on his challenge, making him believe there were no rivals. Then his strange sense told him where these new rivals were, and he looked to see some strange large nest. The new strange sense told it that's where its rivals were, so it gathered its strength and made its way towards its rivals. Its new senses are telling it how to fight its rivals with the strange large nest.
Maxwell was thinking about which of his undead grass elemental lords he should start with first when considering the new inner district of the necropolis. Though he was honestly thinking he might not start with either and instead work on walls to separate the inner and outer districts of the necropolis. Maxwell was brought out of his thoughts by the serpent wall suddenly defending against an attack from the east.
He looked over and, to his shock, saw his newly made outer district of his new necropolis was already under siege. A giant beetle with pale insectoid armor the same color as bone with a horn as long as it was tall that was a darkish purple color sticking out of its forehead. The thing was constantly ramming into the walls on the eastern side. Which wouldn't be bad by itself, but apparently the strange and large beetle had both necrotic and fae magic to it.
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As at any time, the stone snake towers did any damage, like with ghost grass whirlwinds from the ghost grass snake tower, the armor that made up the beetle's outer shell would piece itself back together like a reassembling skeleton. This wasn't the only problem either, as between every charge at the grass walls, the big magical beetle would stop, raise its horn high in the sky, and let out a blast of fae magic. This blast of magic would cause dozens of strange worm-beetle hybrids to come out of the ground.
These worm-beetle hybrids came in a variety of different shapes and sizes. Some were worms covered in beetle armor; others were covered in thousands of beetle wings with a beetle's horn that charged at the walls. There were a few other strange mixes of beetles and worms the large magical beetle was creating, but it and its army seemed to be held at bay in the current moment.
Though with mixed results, as the beetle-worm hybrids continued to be summoned by the big magical beetle, the stone serpent statues had to deal with them. The angry stone snake tower was unleashing angry necrotic smog serpents to counterattack the invading hybrids. While the sad stone snake tower was unleashing its waterfall of venomous tears up and down the different parts of the grass walls from those hybrids with the ability to climb.
This had left the ghost wind stone snake tower as the only tower to direct all its power at the leading large magical beetle of this little siege. For a little while Maxwell just watched this siege as the two forces went back and forth while making his own opinion on the situation. Which was that the situation was currently fine. While that might seem a crazy thought, Maxwell knew, but as he thought it over, the current situation was a stalemate.
Which showed that this little siege was not much of a threat. As the full force of the outer necropolis had not been brought to bear yet. His inner buildings, such as the mantis safe house or the necrotic docks, had not sent for us yet to reinforce the walls. Which meant the walls were holding well enough with just stone snake towers. So, he would use this little surprise siege as nothing more than a test for his new defenses.
Though he did have to do a few things to ensure everything was okay. First, he made sure his generals Horter, Bunet, and the Miserable Rage catapult were all informed of the situation. For two major reasons: one, so they did not panic upon being informed another way besides him telling them and rush over. The other reason was so they could investigate his lands and try and figure out where this large magical beetle came from.
His quick thoughts sent through his magical necrotic senses were heard and obeyed. Though in different ways from each general, Horter began a tactical investigation by having the undead butterflies form into groups and search in grids along the direction the giant magical beetle would have come from to besiege the outer necropolis from the east.
Bunet, on the other hand, just demanded every undead hornet within earshot of her command to kill anything that was out of the order. While the miserable rage catapult went through phases of misery and rage on how to handle the patrol and investigation from the ground. Its miserable state would cause it to believe it would never find out, and when it was in a state of rage, it would charge in the general direction it thought the answer might be while crushing everything under its wheels.
Maxwell took a moment to mentally shake his head before focusing on the others he needed to talk to. He, through his necrotic senses, spoke once more, though this time he told his elite undead squad and the undead grass elemental lords to head to the north docks and into the necropolis proper. As he didn't want them getting caught up in the life fire test at the moment.
Though for a moment he honestly wondered how none of the elite squad or the undead grass elemental lords had reacted to the surge already. Then he saw why as they all five moved towards the necrotic docks. As one of them, the three-headed skull grass serpent happened to see the giant magical beetle and its beetle worm hybrid army. It immediately moved to attack before Maxwell called it off.
This action by the three-headed skull grass serpent told him something. They hadn't intervened because they hadn't been aware it was happening. Which was shocking until he realized the giant magical beetle had necrotic magic in its armored shell. Which, to the magical senses of his undead elites and undead grass elemental lords, made it seem like nothing more than another undead creature that wandered the land.
While then this test is now doubly important, Maxwell thought to himself. As it will not only test his new building defenses but also might give him a clue to how to deal with those who have necrotic abilities in the future. The fact that this giant magical beetle just blended in due to its magical necrotic armor was a bad sign of things to come. So it was that Maxwell watched the siege continue with concerns of the future on his mind while a battle raged on at his eastern wall.
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