Maxwell had watched his elementals as they moved, wondering about his domain as it slowly expanded. The expansion was rather slow, as from what he could tell, his territory would expand by a single centimeter at the end of the day, but it was something, and it's not like he had a list of buildings he needed space to build.

  Not to mention it was nice to be able to enjoy so much color and the moment again, well, remaining completely still after spending so long having to be constantly moving or ready to move back in the void. He watched his smog centipedes as they seemed to race each other across his territory and his smog grass spiders as they went about blending into the small patches of black grass he had before they inevitably jumped out to scare the smog centipedes as they passed by.

  He couldn't see what his smog root hands were doing as they were doing it underground, but he could feel a connection to them and could tell they were doing alright, which was good enough for him. So Maxwell could say for the moment his kingdom was doing well for itself even if his kingdom's total size was only a little more than a foot in diameter, with its only citizens being undead grass electronica.

  Then all of a sudden the peace of his domain was broken, and the smog that constantly tossed and turned as it shrouded his kingdom and its borders was broken as five small green pixies broke through into his domain. They were two inches tall and covered in some strange armor that was made entirely out of bugs they had killed; he could tell from the insect skull shoulder pads that still had holes from where they had been run through. They also wielded what appeared to be grass spears.

  For a long moment, neither side did anything, merely staring at each other as Maxwell was shocked at the sudden intrusion to his domain while the grass pixies were horrified at what was being done to the grass around them by the black smog. Though neither side knew what the other side was thinking, as would be made apparent later.

  This uneasy peace was broken as the smog grass centipedes and spiders sensed the opposing nature of the grass pixies and attacked. The smog centipedes were the ones leading the charge against the pixies, while the smog spiders followed behind them, their spider-like limbs not able to keep up with the centipedes speed.

  The five pixies, meanwhile, made a dive for the nearest black grass. No doubt to use the grass to their advantage in the coming confrontation with the smog grass elements. Maxwell, seeing the battle about to unfold and having no feud with the strange new pixies, as well as not knowing how well his smog grass elementals would do in the fight, gave the order to stand down.

  Maxwell, through the power that gave the smog grass elementals life and form, was connected to them and so could command them in an instant as he happened to do. "Hold your position!" He demanded the smog grass spiders, and at the same time he gave a different order to the smog grass centipedes. "Circle the interlopers, but do not engage until we know their intent." Maxwell said to the grass centipedes.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  He was about to try and make contact with the pixies when it occurred to him. "I don't think I can talk." Maxwell said through his strange necrotic smog network, realizing that in order to figure out the actual intentions of the pixies and reach some type of agreement, The main reason he realized he couldn't speak to the fairies was that his mouth lacked lungs and was effectively a gate, as he was now a building.

  So if he couldn't speak to them, he would have his undead speak to them for him. After Maxwell had this idea, he came to his second realization: the only three undead he had access to couldn't talk any better than he could. As far as Maxwell could tell, his three smog grass elements had zero speaking capacity.

  So as the pixies hid in one of Maxwell's small grass patches while his grass centipedes were circling them, he tried to figure out how to communicate with them. Maxwell thought on the matter, thinking of any method of communication he could try and coming up short for one that would work.

  If he tried to write something and give it to them, he had no reason to believe the fairies could read the language of whatever he wrote. He counted mime as he was a skull, and his creations were not flexible enough to try something like that as their current shapes were a part of the reason they were alive.

  So with no way to communicate and not wanting to start some type of war with the fairy's Maxwell was left at an impasse on how exactly to handle the situation. Then he recalled that he could use the smog to solve his problem; he could simply reshape to present whatever he was trying to get across. But then Maxwell figured out that with the fairies hiding themselves in the black grass, they wouldn't see his smog clouds as they formed his images.

  Though the smog could still help him communicate with the five fairies in his land. Maxwell is now figuring the best way to communicate would be to connect them through his smog. So that he and the fairies could speak to each other directly, mind to mind. So once again he took control of the stream of smog coming out of his eye sockets and redirected some of it towards the five pixies.

  This caused a small flood of black smog to move towards the pixies. This apparently caused them to panic as they immediately left their patch of black grass by somehow using the grass to catapult themselves over his smog grass centipedes and close to the border that separated his lands from the fairy forest lands.

  His centipedes went to pursue, and Maxwell was too shocked out by the fact that the pixies launched themselves like boulders from a catapult to order them to stop. Though luckily for the pixies, their heads started allowing them to pass through the wall of smog and back into their side of the border, causing his grass centipedes to break off their pursuit.

  "While that could have gone better." Maxwell said to himself as his smog-grass elementals went back to what they were doing before the pixies arrival. Maxwell decided it would probably be good to have his grass centipedes pay his borders, knowing that he knew his neighbors were checking him out, though how they felt about him he wasn't sure.

  Though considering he was an undead skull that was classified as an undead construct that was slowly turning the land around him into a dark place where more undead elementals could be born, it was probably safe to say his nature and fairy neighbors were not happy with him. Yeah, he was really going to have to figure out how to increase the rate at which his domain increased because he was going to want more land between his skull and the neighbors that wanted to break it.