Two groups, both alike in duty,

In fair floor five, where we lay our scene,

From a few weeks' grudge break to new mutiny,

Where machine beast blood makes dryad hands unclean.

From forth the nodes of these two foes,

A pair of dungeon-crossed lovers try to take their life,

Whose stupidity piteous overthrows,

Doth with their ridiculousness bury their sibling's strife,

The remarkable passage of their unexpected love,

and the ending of their sibling's rage,

Which, but their sibling's punishment, could remove,

Is now a chapter's length,

The which if you mind the strange language,

Shall entertain for the evening.

----------------------------------------

We find a lone kobold wandering the machine forests, taking in the mechanical beauty of his home. That is until another kobold, one of his brothers fell down a hill, sliding on his back until he was at the feet of his sibling, lying in a small mound of stone and metal.

" Hey, Ron."

" Hey, Billy."

" That hurt."

Helping his brother up, he noticed that his body had unusual cuts and breaks in the scales, which could only be made by one creature on the floor.

" I take it you've been near the grove then huh? You know they don't welcome us anymore."

" Of course, brother, but how could I say no when a perfectly polished and tempered boar was there, just waiting to be turned into a weapon, maybe some armor even."

" And I take it the dryads weren't too welcoming."

" Bah, those soft-skinned tinkerers wouldn't have appreciated my art anyway, too busy singing to fragile machines and metal beasts to understand true artisanry."

" Hmph, I don't normally get involved with them, but I do agree they are pretty-"

SNAP

" And do tell my lizards, we are pretty what exactly?"

Lazily hanging off a tree was one of the many dryads, a beautiful being wearing old engineer's attire. If she were among men, and some women, she would likely be their new goddess, of course, they were made to serve their lord maker, so they knew this fact not.

" As I was saying, you dryads are pretty bad a seeing the pure beauty of our craft."

If it wasn't obvious, soon after their creation, both groups formed a rivalry, stemming mainly from the kobolds hunting the machine beast pets of the dryads for materials and the dryads sometimes seducing the guards and stealing all of the kobolds' moss wine. There were other, minor, issue to be certain, but these were among the most repeated.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Hah, as if, your senseless hammering could in any way make up for the murder of our creations, in fact, Curie, let's teach these boys a lesson."

A second dryad emerged from a nearby tree, wielding a wicked shock spear.

" This is for my birds."

The scaled brothers looked at one another, and eagerly drew their weapons, Ron pulling out his hammer while Bill unfolded a... bronze chair?

" Sigh, Bill, sweet brother, armpit smell of a sibling, WHERE is your spear?!"

" Well aha, um, funny that Ron, I- have absolutely no idea."

Ron took a deep breath in, and another out, of all his siblings Billy was possibly the only one who could just, lose, one of the best weapons their forge had ever made.

" Let's just, get through this."

" You boys ready or what, we have the demonstration in two hours, it'll take at least one and a half to get there."

" Yeah, yeah, yeah you rusty tree trunk, look Bill, just step back, I'll handle this."

" But-but!"

Despite his whining, Ron pushed him to the side, adopting the simple stance he had learned and practiced over his entire life.

Much like her weapon of choice, the first dryad whipped forward, striking where his head was, only to meet his back.

Grabbing the chain before she could pull back, Ron tugged hard enough to launch her forward, using the top of his hammer to strike her stomach, sending her back only to recover with a summersault. Not letting her recover Ron jumped forward with a vicious arc of his hammer, striking the ground and causing a spiderweb of cracks and rents along the surface.

Not to be outdone, the dryad took the hand of her sister and spun around, rocketing her towards Ron with her crackling spear raised. As she sailed through the air her sister was not idle, summoning a storm of razor wire bramble to cut the crocodile-like being.

Ron rolled to the side, using his recovery momentum to hammer his foe upward into the bramble. Predictably she was unharmed by it, but she would remain dazed long enough. As for the bramble, Ron spun so his back took the brunt of it, sparking against his iron-like hide.

With a scream, the whip dryad began her assault anew, using Ron's attempt at mitigating the bramble to tear away his weapon. Quickly he noticed this and grabbed the whip as it struck his side, feeling the pain of broken and lacerated scales and skin.

Twisting uncomfortably, Ron wrapped the extended length around his arm, gritting his teeth at the barbs along the chain whip. Pulling back, he launched her towards him again, but this time she was prepared. Little known fact, not that anyone other than the kobolds would know, but dryads were really, really strong. Flipping around mid-air, she flew over him, twisting so that she was facing upwards, and wrapped her arms around his neck, spinning forward to brutally slam Ron into the ground.

“ Huff-huff, that, took longer than I thought, huff, get up Aurum, we still need to get to-”

CLANG

Stars filled her vision as she fell to the ground, falling unconscious on top of her equally unconscious foe.

“ YES! The chair wins AGAIN! Did you see that Ron- oh, you’re still knocked out, damn.”

” Well, might as well see if these girls have any good loot.”

Is what Bill would have done, if a visceral strike to his head hadn’t knocked him out, courtesy of the now-recovered Aurum.

” Maker damn it, now I have to drag all three back, well, at least that other one is kinda cute.”

This is again what she would have done, had two more people, previously hidden, not bashed her head in, a strike that would vaporize a human’s soft skull, but for a dryad was only enough to give a headache in an hour or two.

” Sigh, I always think that my siblings have finally finished impressing me with how dumb they can be, and yet, here we are.”

” My sisters are hardly any different, in all honestly, they’re fantastically focused and willing when it comes to tinkering and the like, but maker forbid they actually do things on time in any other situation.”

” Hear hear.”

” So, Forge master, what would you like to do about this bunch, I’m partial to having the four of them hung over that endless pit of yours.”

” Well Grove Keeper, I was thinking we could invite the four of them to the planned party.”

” You're rewarding them with a party?”

” Their task will be to ensure Koboldo and Dryliet don’t cause even more issues.”

” Damn that’s cruel, I love it. But we both know that they’re going to cause something, those two are too stuck in their little world to NOT, make a scene.”

” Yeah, but the mental turmoil for these idiots will be worth it.”

” Nice. Well, since we’re going to a party soon, I’ll need to get these girls ready, you wouldn’t mind getting some ambergrits ready, would you?”

” For you, always.”

And with that, the large black and red kobold, the Forge Master of the kobolds, dragged his brothers away, planning their torturous punishment. Likewise, the tall and radiant dryad Grove Keeper departed as well, ready to reprimand her sister on several things, like why they didn't win.