Once upon a time, in a small corner of a forgotten portion of a forgotten land buried deep beneath the earth, hidden from all eyes was a colony of six thousand Rock Gnomes, who worked for a Leader who’s stated purpose was global domination, and the subjugation of all life on the surface world to bring about an age of Gnomish peace and prosperity. The Ubiquitarissiah, a self-described Machine God, and overlord over the “evil lair” that the gnomes worked, lived, and died in. Had ruled the colony of gnomes for many thousands of years, none of the gnomes had ever seen the Ubiquitarissiah in person, as it was hidden deep within the “evil lair”, always giving rules, judgements, and maintaining power through the use of clockwerk gnomes that he used to control the population. None could hide in the face of such an overlord. The Gnomes under his rule have never known a life outside of the evil lair, the “evil lair” which was also called “The Evil Lair” was an underground structure with 15 levels and covering a square mile footprint with 15 square miles of indoor space, with no known entrances or exits.
This story has nothing to do with him, his plans, or even his leadership. Instead, it’s about one lowly gnome in his employ. Bhuem KaBhuem she works in the engineering department, and science labs, as a Gnomoid Clockwerk Scientist, dealing in clockwerk mechanisms and their related parts and fuels, these clockwerks are then used for multiple purposes, ranging from bomb disposal to gathering samples in distant lands, to working as enforcement units. The field uses a symbiosis of mechanical engineering and magical theory formulation not too dissimilar to how a Wizard would design new spells. To the outside world this field would simply be called an artificer, to the uneducated they would be called wizards. To her, she was just an engineer, sure her education and field met all the requirements of being a scientist, but she felt more grounded than a flighty scientist with their head in the ceiling.
Bhuem loved designing new alchemical fuels to power clockwerks. Her favorite fuel design being Hydrogen three Carbon, hydrogen two carbon chains ending in dual carbon oxygen linked to an oxygen linked to a carbon hydrogen three. As it can not only be used as a fuel, but it lubricates and cleans at the same time. Ironically many other gnomes like the chemical because it smells nice “kind of like fruit”. However nice the smell, it would be meaningless to her if it didn’t work as a fuel source and lubricant that also cleaned. Her love of it as a fuel however had its risks as it had a relatively low flash point, so it was not good to use the fuel with clockwerks working around heat, but it worked well with room temperature clockwerk use, however it was actually a food safe fuel source as it was made from fatty acids diffused in alcohol and heated under pressure devoid of oxygen. Which was what the other half of her current project was, designing new food dispensing clockwerks so she would never have to talk to a specific Food Service Gnome, because the Ubiquitarissiah really gave few orders on what they were specifically making to dominate the world, so most of the engineering and scientific staff had free reign with design work and projects. Bhuem was going to remove the possibility of interacting with a specific gnome, then she would have the luxury to pursue her greatest ambition, design the largest explosion possible, she was sure that using the right combination of radioactive material in compression with a properly distributed blast pattern across it’s surface she could cause atomic fission, the long sought-after dream of many a gnome before her.
[beep, beep, beep] the alarm went off, [The time is thirty minutes past the fifth shift hour, beep, beep, beep (repeat every second for a minute), the time is thirty-one minutes past the fifth shift hour] eventually after several minutes, Bhuem KaBhuem woke, she hated mornings, she needed a nice greasy cup of overly caffeinated, overly sugared, and lightly creamed coffee to greet the shift, she hated working the early shift, but it allowed her the least amount of family interactions. Bhuem was not anti-social, but she just hated interacting with gnomes who knew her before, she would just forget that other person that she was had ever existed. She was a woman, and that was final, she took the potion to fix any doubt, she was nothing but girl, as it should have always been. But no, her family, those fifty filthy brothers and sisters of hers, always deadnaming her, as if she even looked like that anymore. Her female parental unit was the worst of the lot though, it seriously peeves her to have come from a being of such mindless dedication, insisting she was just a phase, she would want to return to being that which came before. As if. So, to minimize her family, she refuses to remember them, she ignores their existence in the same way they ignore her right to being herself. But him, the food service gnome, he is the one existence she hopes to never see, her youngest sibling. Uhgh.
Slowly she went to the water unit and cleaned her body and hair, then after drying off she did her hair in her trademarked style of twin buns. She then went to her uniform storage unit and took out her overalls and protective armor. Then she checked her personally issued firearm, and affixed the powder, caps, and balls to their special pockets on her belt. She then activated her personal grooming reflection unit, to check herself in a three-dimensional view. She really loved her figure. She looked in the hologram and then added a light coat of makeup to bring out her green eyes which perfectly contrasted her naturally pink hair.
“You go girl!” she said looking at the hologram of herself. She then spun on her toes of her heavy work boots, the skirt of her plate armor “went spinny” she made happy gnomish sounds as she left her personal sleep cubical.
The cafeteria was on the level between her sleep cube and her work cube space, so she walked in saw the annoy-o-gnome serving greenslop, she huffed, grabbed a food tray from the large stack, hit the first station got her triple expresso with extra sugar and steamed cream, while sipping on her caffeine infusion, she went to the green slop window, as she loved the nutritional value that the green slop provided, it was a mix of boiled algae and floral fungus roots blended into a nice smooth green slop. It had twice the vitamin content and triple the daily required iron intake. Most gnomes however preferred the orange slop made from the root plants grown in hydroponics. They had good vitamins, but were overloaded with carbohydrates, meaning with her new female physiology if she ate that she would balloon up to the next overall size, and she liked being a size minus 8. Her birth unit was a size minus 5, of course she also had multiple litters of kids over the years, and worked in the medical unit, and was a cleric of the ‘Original path of the Ubiquitarissiah’ the conservative religious faction of gnomes, who believed that unless Ubiquitarissiah specified something than the logic value was zero. They felt a gnome should remain unchanged unless ordered by Ubiquitarissiah, as if, she needed the change, she asked Ubiquitarissiah for help, he sent an enforcer clockwerk with the potion of permanent gender change. She might not have been ordered to change, but Ubiquitarissiah did send her the potion when she asked for it. As for her, that was all the confirmation she needed that hers was the right choice in the eyes of their overlord. Of corse she didn’t actually believe that Ubiquitarissiah was a god as described in the educational portion of her youth. Ubiquitarissiah didn’t exist on some plane of existence separated from the world. So, by the basic descriptions of divine ranks, Ubiquitarissiah, could be no more than a divine rank 0 through 4. Ie a demi-god. She was fine with this line of thought. Of corse she mostly forgot everything she schooled in besides the subjects relating to her actual passions. She passed the corse of study on gods and divine ranks, she passed the course on history and geography, and promptly forgot about them as they were meaningless to her life, she got full honors in math, mechanical engineering, drafting, chemistry, and gnomebotics. She excelled in her magical formula studies, and her applied magics. She graduated at the top of her class, so she was allowed to pick her own lab, and research what she wanted. Other lesser gnomes had to either work as lab assistants, or work in support drone functions, most of her family units were support units, she wished them well, but hoped they would just vanish to other levels. Which is why she picked a lab on the topmost level on the outer ring, her sleepcube was placed on the uppermost sleep dorms. Closest to her labs. Unfortunately, the floor between was services and support units. Which was why the cafeteria was there, and her idiot youngest sibling was serving her green slop, and chatting away at her saying things like, “…so brave…”, “…being yourself…”, “…hero...”, “…workers unite…”, wait what?!, ah nevermind.
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As he finished talking looking expectantly at Bhuem, she said the words she said every day she got food from him, “Thank you food service drone.” And walked a way so she could eat, and recharge on her caffeine. When done, she filled a large fluid container with more creamy caffeine-sugar and went to her lab.
She entered her lab area; the space was divided into three enclosed cubicles. In the front cubical was her drafting tables, abacus and slide rules, with stacks and stacks of papers and designs, in the middle airtight cube was the chemical lab and gnombotic construction area with a viewing window for the third cube, the experimental lab. The front lab was perfectly clean white walls, white floors, and white ceilings with light cubes set into the ceilings. On one wall was the daily orders screen which gave out assignments and orders from Ubiquitarissiah, on the screen all you could see was a clock timer that said:
Minute(s) since the last work-related injury:
[2 minutes]
Work safe, Work smart, Work for world peace and power for Ubiquitarissiah
Current shift [6th shift 00 minutes]”
She was hoping today the food service bot would be ready, the last 5 exploded while cooking green slop. She was sure this time she could do it, and then her annoying brother would be reassigned, away from her, and what the hell was a “union” anyway? And why did he want her help making one?
Over the course of the day she, repaired the bot, built a new fuel containing housing mixed a new batch of her biofuel, she was thinking of calling this mixture Esther diesel, since it was frustrating and was starting to annoy her just like her mother. On paper it should work, but it kept exploding when she didn’t want it to. Sure, she loves big booms, it’s why she named herself Bhuem KaBhue, that and her dead name pissed her off it was not her at all. But no, she would not call her work of the last 3 weeks after her mother. No, she would name it like she named everything.
Fuel Unit 3, triglyceride, biodiesel for Food Service Unit 4.
She then filled the newly repaired food service clockwerk with fuel, placed it in front of the cook pot, set the activation matrix, left the lab, and watched the bot turn the heat on, it then grabbed the oversized metal stirring and serving spoon used to make and serve slop, the bot started to stir the pot at the correct speed. She then activated the customer bots she made for the experiment, the bots were simple gnome bots designed to queue in line then receive the slop on the trays they held, then walk away as if finding a seat, they would then clean their slop into the slop recycle bin and rejoin the queue. The slop recycle bin of course was then used by the food service bot to resupply when it was out of slop.
She needs all the bots to continue without fail for 8 shifts.
They made it 6 shifts when the service bot failed, and exploded violently, shredding everything in the experiment lab.
“So close, just needed to make it 2 more shifts.” She slumped in the observation seat, and looked to the time, it was the 22nd shift. She decided to call it a night, better luck the next day. On the way out of her lab, she received a personal call on her screen, she answered it to see one of her idiot siblings, one that had joined the red shirt defense brigade, he said to her, “…(deadname) … run …. monster … No one can stop it, the horror, save yourself” She hung up, no one calls her that word, never, the nerve of him.
She went to the lift down the hall from her lab. She pressed the call button, when a violent explosion ripped the doors off, knocking her back, she lost consciousness at Shift 22, and fifteen minutes, on the last day of work in “The Evil Lair”.
End of the Short shorty and background of Bhuem KaBhuem
Character sheet @ DnDBeyond https://ddb.ac/characters/40921452/OjovaV