The snapping turtle slumped to the ground, very, very dead. To be precise, half of it slumped to the ground—its head was still tightly gripped in the kobold's bleeding claws.

I couldn't peer into her mind anymore, her having sworn to a different lord, but I could read Seros'. He was a bundle of awkwardness, not really knowing how to deal with his new sworn underling but being guided by instincts anyway, and choosing something in his own, reptilian language.

Rihsu.

I didn't know what it meant, but by the way she stood up even straighter past the scarlet bleeding over her scales and the actively-spurting turtle head in her claws, I imagined she liked it.

Precocious little beast. I pressed soothing mana over her, stitching scales back together and pressing skin back together. She nodded her head to Seros. As if he was the one doing it.

Fantastic.

As she went off with Seros, I poked back around the turtle's corpse. It had grown in its time in my halls, ballooning out until its shell was nearly seven feet across and four off the ground, heavily ridged and a deep, emerald green past the mosses growing off its back like threadbare wings. Its jaws were built to snap mountains in half.

All in all, precisely something I would want in my halls.

I dissolved away at its outer edges, shredding through its mana and soul; it presented a unique view of my dungeon, being present for attacks and growth but without my voice overhead instructing my creatures on what to do. It had mapped out some areas of the Drowned Forest I hadn't considered as worthwhile, so I'd be changing that. Beyond that, it was a slow moving ambush predator, content both on land or in water, and it damn well knew it was invulnerable. An armourback sturgeon but with fangs. Glorious little addition.

Lichenridge Turtle (Uncommon)

Slow and lumbering, from birth it grows various mosses and lichens upon its back to disguise itself as it hunts. The plants are fed as it feeds and breathes as it breathes, eventually growing large enough to completely hide it.