Legotas was the god of legends, and being a legend was quite a good thing. Legotas had been on a winning streak as far as he could remember. No challengers to his throne; endless new legends to add to his power and ever-growing list of tales. Honestly, several of his temples looked more like tombs for his archives, with all the scrolls on legends he had in there than actual places of worship.

  So when he heard Phabium, the god of monsters, was plotting once again, he was quite happy. As everyone of them had failed so far, and usually when they did, they only added to the strength of his legends. Not to mention with another age of legends coming up, which was a decades-long holiday dedicated solely to him as far as Legotas was concerned. So he didn't have any fears of Phabium breaking the cycle of his monster being cannon fodder for his glorious legends.

  Legotas good mood lasted until he heard from his fellow gods about how Phabium wasn't going to get help not from Zostrora, no, he was going outside for help. As far as Legotas could remember, Phabium has never done this before and knew enough about someone pulling out something never before seen to be concerned.

  So Legotas knew he had to be on the safe side and interfere, as he couldn't outright stop the summoning of outside help by Phabium due to ancient laws among the gods to prevent that. But he could do other things, such as mess with where whatever Phabium summoned was supposed to end up.

  So he did just once he felt the summoning and something enter Phabium's heavenly domain; he simply waited for it to leave once it did. He timed it just right. Just as the being formed into a skeleton, he knew exactly where to send it and so he used his divine might which was far greater than Phabium's to switch the summoning portals locations to above the fairy lands. "Let see how your skeleton does in the land of the fair folk." Legotas said in a dark tone before laughing to himself; meanwhile, a certain skull found himself dealing with the fallout of the gods actions.

  Maxwell was at a bit of an impasse; he didn't have any hands to dig a hole nor did he have any bones. So he couldn't start building his bone chamber. He also was missing his legs, so he couldn't walk anywhere to find his hands so he could try and build his bone chamber and start his skeletal kingdom.

  Honestly, if he had tear ducts, Maxwell would probably be crying after God only knows how long in the void he's freed and given a divine task only to fail right out of the gate. "Truly, I am a total and complete failure." Maxwell said with such sorrow that when paired with his now undead nature, he created a black necrotic smog that came out of his empty eye sockets that killed all the grass in the about-foot diameter area around him.

  Distracted momentarily by his sadness at his total failure, he took in the dead grass that surrounded him. Then, as he was about to wonder if he could do anything with his new-found tears of death to build a kingdom like he was supposed to, he began to hear the voice of Phabium.

  "My apologies for your rude change in location, my new ruler of bone. It would appear my rival god Legotas, god of legends, interfered and sent you into the ancient fairy woods instead of the bone caves I had meant too. But besides that, are you alright?" Phabium asked, concerned about Maxwell's being, as he doubted Legotas had been gentle with his sudden changing of Maxwell's spawning location.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "I've been reduced to just a skull." Maxwell stated sadly worried that Phabium would abandon him considering how badly he had fallen so early in the beginning of his quest. Luckily, Phabium would not abandon his young ruler of bones.

  "Well, it appears we'll have to adjust our plans. As you clearly can't start as ruler of skeletons when you aren't a full skeleton yourself. Nor can we wait for you to become whole to begin when the inherit magics of the magical forest you are in will be trying to destroy you. So we'll have to adjust accordingly to the current situation." Phabium said to Maxwell as he began to change what exactly Maxwell started as.

  This caused Maxwell to feel a sudden change as something fundamental about his new form was changed. He began to leak a constant small stream of black smog from his eye sockets, leaking into the small area of dead grass around him.

  "There is something that should help you to become the ruler I have asked you to become. I must cut our connection before I bring the attention of those who govern the fair folk down upon you. Best of luck. I believe you will succeed." Phabium said before his presence was gone and Maxwell was left alone, and then the scroll appeared showing him the changes to his undead race.

  Maxwell, after looking at the scroll and seeing he had been made into an undead construct from the broken skeleton he had been. Which was good as it seemed his new starter building was the only thing preventing the natural magic, which he guessed was some combination of fairy and nature, from overwhelming and destroying him as a member of the undead.

  Though it was weird to somehow feel a constant flow of black smog running down his face from his eye sockets despite not having skin to feel it with. Though he supposed he would get used to it now it was time to get to business if he was to be an undead skull fort he would need defenders.

  It wouldn't be hard to imagine that the local fairy he could see in the distance was not happy with his skull suddenly appearing and leaking necrotic magic in their part of the forest. So as any decent ruler of the undead should, he began to look for bodies to raise into the undead, then proceeded to run into a problem as there weren't any.

  As Maxwell took in his effectively grassy graveyard, he saw that it seemed his crashing landing had spooked off all the nearby insects, and him now leaking deadly necrotic smog was keeping them out. So that meant he had no bodies to raise, and considering he could expect the local tiny fairies to come deal with him at some point, he would need defenders when that time came.

  So as Maxwell took in his grass graveyard, he knew he had only one option. "It looks like my first order of business as a skull fort is to began research and development." Maxwell said as he began looking into seeing what he could do with the only bodies he had he could use, which was grass. So began the first step of Maxwell the skull fort in his battles against the fairy woods of Gregal.