The Rock Gnawer Tribe had a strict hierarchy where every gno knew their place, their superiors, and their subordinates.
Above all the gnos stood two figures.
Broken-Tusk Grolk, the gno chieftain who could control the Giant-Arm Miner, and Pustule Grozz, the shaman of the Rock Gnawer Tribe who was also an alchemist wielding what other gnos saw as miraculous alchemical magic.
At this mont.
Broken-Tusk Grolk was brutally impaling a gno who had challenged his authority in the tribe's open clearing, hanging the body on a wooden fra, lighting a bonfire to roast it directly, and making other gnos share the al.
This gno chieftain was already quite old.
Nearly 30 years.
Gnos typically lived about fifty years, but 30 was considered elderly.
Survival in the wilderness was harsh, and the Rock Gnawer Tribe had limited resources. Very few gnos lived past 30, most dying in their teens.
Normally.
A gno of Grolk's age would have been challenged and replaced by younger gnos.
But through brutal killings and cunning experience, he still firmly controlled everything in the Rock Gnawer Tribe, sitting on the highest throne of power.
Only he could operate the Giant-Arm Miner.
The tribe had paid a heavy price for this construct, starving many clansn to gather enough wealth to purchase it from a passing rchant caravan.
The Giant-Arm Miner was a humanoid alchemical golem.
Standing eight ters tall at the shoulder with exposed riveted steel plates and crude seams, its massive arms were thick and long with shovel-like hands that could scrape the ground, seeming capable of shattering marble with a light tap.
As the na suggested, it was an alchemical golem for mining, but its size and weight made it equally suitable for killing and combat.
Sitting in the cockpit on the Giant-Arm Miner's chest.
Broken-Tusk Grolk felt himself grow taller, looking down at the insignificant gnos below, a wonderful sense of superiority and power to decide life and death blossoming in his heart.
Especially after recently scaring off a young dragon.
This inflated Grolk's vanity to the extre, making him think dragons weren't so special—with better alchemical golems, he could even hunt juvenile or adult dragons.
"Pity that young dragon escaped."
"If I'd caught it, I could've bought better alchemical golems."
"I wonder if the wolf riders have tracked it down yet."
Grolk thought to himself.
Suddenly, he seed to see a dark shadow flash across the sky before vanishing.
"What was that?"
Grolk was startled but quickly composed himself as the shadow disappeared like an illusion, the sky returning to its usual calm.
anwhile.
In the alchemical workshop, an extrely ugly gno was flipping through sothing.
Its gray-green skin was covered in cracked patterns oozing yellow-green mucus that reeked of rotting flesh mixed with sulfur, with dozens of fist-sized lumps on its back filled with differently colored pus.
Pustule Grozz, shaman of the Rock Gnawer Tribe.
It was completely absorbed in studying a thin booklet.
The cover read:
[Beginner's Alchemy Manual]
This manual was sothing Grozz had found. Unfortunately, with limited literacy and no ntor, it could mostly only understand the diagrams. Over the years of trial and error, it had developed these pustules but had also accidentally grasped so basic alchemical runes.
Every ti Grozz read the manual, it gained new insights.
Unlike its ignorant clansn who were content with their dull lives, Grozz loved knowledge, research, and communicating with other intelligent beings.
It thought itself perhaps a genius.
Had it not been born in such a small place like the Rock Gnawer Tribe, it could have had a much brighter future.
Through rare exchanges, it knew of a civilization called the Lothrian Federation beyond the wilderness, where a gno kingdom existed—reportedly filled with wise, civilized gnos unlike the vulgar, stupid ones here that it despised. That was the place it longed for.
After studying the manual a while longer.
Grozz carefully put it away in a black wooden box for safekeeping.
Only then did it notice the ssage stone at its waist glowing faintly.
Picking it up and holding it to its ear.
Grozz's expression imdiately changed so violently that several pustules on its face burst.
"Dragon! A powerful black-red young dragon!"
"It's slaughtering us!"
It had heard desperate shouts, pleading screams, and the whoosh of draconic wings cutting through air.
Beyond the sounds, the ssage also contained a vague direction.
"Black-red young dragon?"
Grozz paced its room, realizing the severity—the wolf riders were likely all dead.
"Tell Grolk and launch a night ambush?"
That was its first thought.
But it quickly dismissed the idea.
A young dragon capable of wiping out the wolf riders without letting any escape was no ordinary foe. With just the tribe's gnos and one Giant-Arm Miner, even an ambush might not succeed.
"I can't tell Grolk—he's too arrogant and stupid now to recognize his place."
"Maybe sell the information to a rchant caravan?"
Grozz considered.
It had contact with the caravan that had sold them the Giant-Arm Miner.
Perhaps it could sell the dragon's whereabouts for so profit.
But this was a dragon.
Dragons ant wealth, ant hope of leaving this wilderness.
After much deliberation, Grozz decided to first send scouts to investigate. If there was any chance, it would hunt the dragon at all costs. Only as last resort would it inform the caravan.
But just as Grozz was thinking this.
A cacophony of screams erupted outside.
Then.
BOOM! With deafening force, the ground shook violently as if a teor had struck, cracks spreading beneath Grozz's feet.
It stumbled back and fell.
"What happened?"
Panicked, Grozz scrambled up and rushed outside.
As it pushed open the door, its vision filled with smoke and flas, through which a black-red blur flashed—Grozz's pupils finally caught the source of disaster.
A dragon clad in black steel-like scales with dark red magma-like patterns flowing across them.
It was slowly rising, its powerful limbs standing in a circular crater containing pulverized corpses.
A pair of massive wings covered in feather-like scales with razor edges unfurled.
With a light flap, several nearby gnos who couldn't dodge in ti were bisected, their leather armor offering no more protection than paper.
It was Garoth.
He had co after all.
Initially, Garoth thought a gno tribe that couldn't even capture Samantha posed no threat worth worrying about. But then he reconsidered, realizing this arrogance might be dangerous—he shouldn't underestimate them.
Arrogance was the number one killer of dragons, bar none.
Garoth reflected that gnos were intelligent beings, not mindless beasts. A tribe possessing alchemical golems likely had outside contacts, perhaps communication channels with other intelligent races.
This thought.
Made the life-cherishing Garoth sowhat afraid. He didn't want to abandon the iron fir hills nor face unexpected attacks.
This fear.
Drove Garoth to eliminate the source of his unease preemptively, for peace of mind.
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