Wormer was working with his two new assistants in the operating chambers, showing them how to perform the craft that he was known for and what they would need to know as well to be proper members of their clan. As well as contribute to the kingdom that their clan was a part of.
Wormer still found himself surprised by that thought; it had been a little while since he had gotten the first two members of his new clan. But the fact he had a clan once again after decades of being alone still shocked him like their birth had happened a moment ago. Though he supposed he might grow used to it when more and more members were born, which would be a surprise in and of itself, he supposed.
Wormer at that current moment was teaching his assistants how to create a basic siege worm. Though they could only, at the moment, modify the worm in front of them in a single way. One assistant favored defensive modification, such as skin hardening, while the other favored offensive modification, such as talons of stone extending out the maw of the worm.
This difference in how the assistants chose to modify the siege worms with their admitted limited ability inspired him to give them their names. He named the one who favored defensive modification Worense and the other who favored offensive modification Worack.
Only working with him or each other could they create a fully fledged siege worm. As he thought about what he should try and teach his assistants next, one of the nearby smog root fists reached out and grabbed his hand. The root soon passed along an image of an underground building the ruler of the kingdom wanted constructed, as well as anything else he could do to bring structure to the underground.
Wormer passed back the feeling of acceptance of taking the job and the pride at the opportunity for such a grand project. The root gave a feeling of happiness at his acceptance as well as a feeling of brotherhood, showing the smog roots would help with the project if he needed it before the smog root pulled back.
Wormer thought on the plans that had been implanted into his head for a moment before coming to a decision. "We're going to have to make this underground temple last." Wormer stated simply that there was the structure that needed very much to support such an understructure, and as things were, they risked the whole thing collapsing if they tried to build onto the maze of random tunnels.
"So we will improve the tunnels first and then do the temple." Wormer said to himself before turning to his assistants, who were still practicing their skills on smaller stone tables than what he himself usually used. "Come, my assistants, we have a big project to get started on." Wormer said to his assistant, who had gotten bored repeating the same practice task over and over again.
"Yes, Elder Wormer!" The two pixies said together in total unison before giving each other an ugly glare, their opposing skills having given rise to a powerful rivalry in a short span of time. Wormer merely chuckled, happy to be called elder once again by a young kinsman as he led them out of the chamber and into the tunnels.
The three dark worm pixies wandered the underground, being sure to explore all of the underground as they could to be sure of what they needed to build. Eventually Wormer was sure he had the layout of the confusing tunnels down in its totality. So he thought about how best to rectify the architectural shortfalls of the current underground.
Wormer thought it in for a long moment with his assistants at his side staring at him, wondering how the elder would fix the underground. He looked at them for a moment and remembered an earlier failure of Worense, who had accidentally hardened a few of his worms too much, causing them to die as they were turned into a stone statue of a worm instead of a worm with stone skin.
"I have an idea my assistants will turn Worense's earlier mistakes into successes." Wormer said as he began leading them back to the chamber where the worm statues were left. Sadly for Worense, his fellow assistant Worack couldn't let an opportunity to comment go.
"Well, it's good that our elder can make something of your mistakes because I don't think you can." Worack stated with a vicious grin that Worense was about to say something back, but Wormer saw the argument coming on and stopped it before it got going once again.
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"That's enough. We have work to do, so move your feet faster instead of your mouths." Wormer said firmly to his assistants, who both quieted and picked up the pace. They made it back to the chamber, and all three went over to where the stonework statues had been put to the side. Wormer gave the statues a quick look over before he spoke.
"Yes, with a few modifications, these worm statues will fit our needs perfectly." Wormer said before waving his assistants over to him and going over what they would need to do with the worm statues with the skill WORM SHAPE. Once they were shown what they needed to do, the assistants got to work on the worm statues. Well, Wormer got several worm parts from the dead piles to make into more statues for their use.
Worense and Worack showed their skill by easily shaping the worm statues into small pipes, and as Wormer added more and more worm stone for them to shape, they soon had a pile of worm pipes to use. Wormer looked it over for the pile of stone worm pipes, making a few adjustments so they would have the angled pipes required.
"Well, I think we have enough, so to the tunnels we go." Wormer said before he and his assistants gathered the stone worm pipes and went into the tunnels, and as they went, they would turn the stone worm pipes into stone worm tunnels with the use of the ENLARGE skill.
Wormer tried to have all three of them take a different tunnel to reinforce at a time it didn't work. As Worack seemed to have no ability when it came to the ENLARGE skill, he had to follow behind Wormer while glaring at a very smug Worense, who started putting up stone worms in another stretch of tunnels.
Slowly, over the course of hours or a couple of days, as time was hard to tell underground, they had turned the mismatched underground maze into a uniform tunnel system. The three assistants were reunited back at a connecting tunnel with a smug Worense being glared at by Worack.
"Now we need to dig here to get the materials necessary for the temple catacombs." Wormer said, pointing to the solid wall, which had traces of a gray-colored rock that was necessary for the construction of the temple. "Though how to get it." Wormer said knowing the material was a bit tough for a lot of his worms to try and collect for them. He looked over to his assistants to make sure they hadn't attacked each other due to their rivalry and remembered that just like Worense, Worack had made an early mistake by making the extending talons too long and sharp, causing them to cut their own head off by mistake.
With a few modifications, his overly sharp worm could work for this wormer thought and turned fully to his assistants to speak to them. "Well, it looks like we'll be using Worack's earlier mistake to tunnel the rock we need." Wormer said to the two assistants, which caused Worense to become more smug while Worack's glare at him became even more intense.
They made their way over to an empty worm mutation chamber, and then the three began to mass-produce the piercing siege worm, a modified working version of the overly sharp version Worack had tried and failed to make. Once they had a couple of piercing siege worms, Wormer and Worack used DUPLICATE to copy them into a small horde and then had them mine the rock out and bring it to a large empty chamber that Wormer had specifically marked as the location where the temple catacomb is built.
Worense was now glaring at a smug Worack because Worense couldn't use DUPLICATE to flip their earlier dynamic. Eventually a large pile of stone had been gathered in the large empty chamber near the surface. "Now it is time to begin." Wormer said and began to build the catacomb with a central chamber with several connecting hallways, all having smaller chambers.
The process of construction went on for a while as the temple catacomb slowly took shape, but soon enough the main chamber was complete with its large pedestal as well as the connecting hallways with their caller chambers, with the only way in or out being the entrances, one above ground and one deeper below. With the entrance carved out into the above ground, the temple catacombs were done, so he and his assistants stood to the side and waited for the judgment of the ruler of his kingdom and whether he had succeeded or failed in his task.