Various protrusions appeared in the husk as she made her way along it. Oddly enough, it looked like her friend’s body had gone through and then discarded many strange and unusual changes throughout the process. There were numerous, partially grown irregularities that Kor couldn’t make any sense of.
She investigated the small half-formed appendages that had pushed themselves through the discarded husk. Feet, claws, pincers, and talons all made appearances at various places. Snek had clearly been through something unique. Kor worried for her small friend - well, not so small anymore - she estimated that Snek was now longer than three of herself stacked atop each other.
When the evolution had begun, Kor had curiously watched from atop one of the piles in her collection while holding her bren jar. Snek had begun glowing and rapidly growing in size. It didn’t take long for the goblin woman to realize that something was wrong, however. It had looked like her friend’s skin didn’t fit, growing taut and misshapen as it stretched over the glowing mass beneath.
She had darted down to the floor in order to intervene, but before she could fully descend from the pile, the snake had begun moving. It had brushed up against the edges of her treasure horde, hooking the misshapen outer layer of its skin against a snapped walking stick that was protruding from underneath the pile.
Her friend, or perhaps Blood, had begun to pull itself free from the ill-fitting layer of skin, which succeeded in getting the evolution back on track. Yet as ecdysis continued to progress, the outer layer of skin continued to tighten and the snake kept growing. She had thought that it looked similar to Mog’s loincloth, cinched aggressively into the flesh of his hips that pushed out over the thin strip of leather.
The thought brought a slight sense of shame with it and Kor scolded herself for teasing the poor goblin, if only in her mind. His life had been filled with more trauma than most goblins would experience in their admittedly short lifetimes - some of which may have been indirectly caused by her actions.
While these thoughts ran through her head, Snek had continued growing, molting, and slowly making her way across the floor. The layer of skin being shed didn’t stop when it reached the length of her previous body. Instead, it continued to peel back as the snake wiggled its still glowing body across the floor directly toward one of her treasure piles…
“Snek! Don’t hit the pile!” Kor yelled, running down and trying to lift the snake by the head to redirect it, but as soon as her hands had touched the brightly glowing scales, sharp pain accompanied a faint sizzling, and she yanked her hands back. The wrinkled flesh of her small green palms burned as blisters quickly grew and popped open. Frantically, Kor looked around for another option. She didn’t think anything good could come from her super heated friend slithering through the large piles in her hut.
“Mog - help Kor move stuff!” She yelled, frantically picking up and tossing various items across the room and out of the way.
Mog stood from where he was tending the wounded rat, then lumbered across the floor of the hut to help her.
“Don’t touch Snek. Very hot!” She yelled, as Mog joined her in clearing a path for Snek to progress.
For the next few hours, the goblins had worked tirelessly. Before long, Kor’s hands were oozing blood out over her collection. Pushing past the pain and discomfort, they barely stayed ahead of the snake’s metamorphosis.
Clanging metal, breaking glass, and the clattering of minor avalanches punctuated the previously calm day. There was no time to gently reorganize as she had done previously, and when one of the piles had tumbled down onto the snake’s form, she cringed and hoped for the best.
Luckily, nothing caught fire, but many of her treasures became warped and bent from the immense heat. She noticed that smoke was rising from the floor beneath Snek, a scorched black trail underlying the husk of discarded skin. Kor didn’t have time to consider the length of the ever-growing husk, or really pay any attention to what was happening to her friend. She solely focused on providing a path for the ever changing serpent. She didn’t want Snek to get injured, and also hoped to minimize any damage done to her collection.
Both Kor and Mog were dripping in sweat and blood by the time the snake finally stopped glowing and shedding skin. Snek had since gone and coiled back up on the small blanket, staring at them unseeingly with her new bright green eyes. It was slightly intimidating. Kor absently realized that if Snek decided she wanted to attack the tribe, the goblins would have a serious problem on their hands. She didn’t doubt that Snek would be able to stretch her jaws to consume a small goblin whole in her new form. It was good that they were friends.
With the evolution having passed the point of danger, Kor sent Mog out to fetch some raw meat for when the snake awoke. That was her excuse anyway. The real reason was the large goblin’s musty stench. It hung in the air throughout the now humid hut, and she pinned the door’s hide up as he departed to air it out a little.
As she took a fresh breath of the air that fanned her sweat matted forehead, Kor had turned and begun inspecting the incredibly long husk. Kor followed its path around the hut multiple times before realizing it formed a strange symbol, the shape of two large parallel circles, connected horizontally by the overlapping discarded skin.
Jolting back into awareness, Snek attempted to rip away control of whatever vessel she was placed into - and easily succeeded. Her form rose high as she reared up and glared down at the bright red and yellow creature standing before her. It did not move, but returned her gaze nonetheless. Her other senses crashed upon her in waves, including the feedback from her zone of awareness. She swooned briefly, but was able to right herself in order to avoid collapsing into a pile of mushroom-filled boots.
She looked back towards the figure, which glowed bright yellow and red thanks to this new sense, and finally recognized who it was.
“Kor?” She asked mentally, and the goblin woman nodded to her. She was already using her spell? What was going on?
Snek turned her focus internally and saw Blood nervously observing her. She dipped her head slightly in apology, and felt a tangled mess of relief and pride flow through their bond. Kor also reached out a hand and gently patted her side, sending out the remaining tension as relief encompassed her. It was finally over.
“Welcome back, Snek.” Her friend said, and Snek nodded before giving control of their body back to Blood and settling into the back of their mind.
Taking a moment to inspect her new form, Snek realized that she had inherited a few features from the snake in her vision. Aside from the obvious white scales, and sensory-overloading pit organs, her muscle mass had increased. She would place it somewhere between a venomous and constrictor snake, which made perfect sense.
Size wise, her diameter had increased by about ten times its previous width, and she had grown from being a little over two feet long to around twelve feet. She could feel the thrum of potential energy from her new muscle mass and weight, and grew excited at the prospect of testing out what her new body could accomplish.
That would have to wait, however, as she needed to continue taking stock of all the changes. She still had her venom and skills, and she hadn’t lost any of her attributes. In fact, they had gone up slightly across the board. The only detriment, in her mind, was the color of her new scales. Snek missed the distinctive and vibrant red she was used to, but she knew of a mutation that could easily solve that issue.
Overall, she was comfortable in her new body. It was much better than the numerous vessels she had been shunted through during her out of body experience, and she didn’t like the idea of having to go through that again. Still, now that she knew what to expect, she began thinking of ways to handle it better for future evolutions.
She still didn’t know what had caused her System to change her path, but hoped that the growing mental pressure of attention craving notifications could shed some light on that.
The new attributes were a balm to her worn down and frayed mindset. Not only did it mean that the cap to her Constitution attribute was removed, but she had also never earned this many attribute points in one go before. She reveled in the all around buff. The blanket increase wasn’t something that was immediately noticeable, as the shape of her new vessel drew her immediate attention, but she could definitely feel it now that she focused.
Her zone of awareness had also grown due to the increase in Wisdom, and she briefly considered expanding it further with her unspent points. She decided to hold off, however, in favor of testing her new form before spending the limited resource. Instead, she focused on the strange text of the Feat of Power.
She didn’t know what an ‘Arbok’ was, and her literacy skill did not provide an explanation. Perhaps the word was similar to the runes on her magical ring, but she didn’t think so. It felt like her system was hinting at or referencing something. The reference eluded her, along with the previous bits of flavor text she had noticed on previous notifications. There wasn’t anything she could do about it right now, as no thought or mental prodding provided an explanation. It was just another mystery to add to her ever growing list.
Dancing? Totem? She wondered, pulling the description up for the new term. She was not disappointed. According to her system, a totem was an overall enhancement for the Ecdysis System itself. Snek figured that this specific totem was related to the large snake from her vision, and drew a comparison to its name and the name of her new form. As far as she was aware, ‘covetous’ and ‘green-eyed’ were both synonymous with envy. However, her curiosity was shoved aside as she read the totem’s effect.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She stared at the description for much longer than it took for her to actually read it, before a flood of possibilities raced through her mind. She was now able to mutate to copy the abilities and skills of other creatures? Kor had mentioned enormous monsters that reached to the sky, along with a multitude of other creatures with strange abilities. True, she had to consume them first, but her new form should be able to handle something roughly around her own weight. If she had some help from Kor or Mog with preparing her meals… Well, there might not be a limit at all.
Perhaps there were creatures out there with similar abilities to her system…
Her eyes drifted to the corner of the hut. The new pit glands allowed her to ‘see’ through the piles of trash - which were somehow even more disorganized now - and she gazed at the small yellowish orange figure across the room. The large rat obviously had some sort of ability that had allowed it to avoid damage and push off the effects of her venom. Perhaps she could try out her new tote-
“Yeah, let’s eat him, Snek!” Blood said, excitedly intruding into her thoughts, breaking her focus and startling her.
Kor had also noticed the change in their bearing, and glanced in the direction they were looking. While she couldn’t see through the piles of random junk, the goblin woman quickly inferred their intentions.
“We still need the rat, Snek. Kor needs the flowers that Jigz didn’t give.”
Snek peered back down at her friend, and noticed something strange. The goblin woman’s heart had grown a fraction of a shade hotter when she spoke, her pulse increasing slightly. She stared at the woman, unsure what it meant, before Kor eventually continued reluctantly.
“Mog also seems to like him.”
A twinge of betrayal cut through Snek’s curiosity. Why should it matter what Mog wanted? He had worked with Deeb to trap her in a death game, afterall. Blood must have felt the same, because it asked, “Why do you like Mog so much?”
Snek wasn’t ready to hear her friend's reasoning, so she tuned out the conversation in favor of analyzing her new gains, opening up her status.
Thinking back to where she had started, Snek felt a warm rush of pride. She was much stronger than she used to be, and she had a clear path to becoming stronger. The future was looking bright. And while the missing evolution points irked her, as the mana core was still out of reach, she knew it wouldn’t be long before she had usurped that power as well.
The screen had changed as well, now listing her evolutionary line. It seemed like a useless change for the time being, as it was just listed as a bunch of question marks. Her path had been ‘serpentine’ before, and while her new body had combined her old features with the snake’s from her vision, she didn’t understand how that was enough to change her Evolutionary Line. They were both snakes, after all, weren’t they?
Regardless, she pulled up the Evolutionary Map in search of more answers. She could no longer see any future options. The map looked more like a web now, instead of a tree. Instead of showing three branching paths from her current vessel, there were numerous stems leading out into a shrouded darkness.
The section for ‘Alternate Evolutionary Lines’ now listed her previous options, and she got the feeling that she could revert to them if she wanted. She didn’t. Curiously enough, the cost to revert over to her previous Evolutionary line had increased dramatically. It now cost over five Evolution Points for each option. While she didn't want to revert anyway, she wondered if her system was pushing her in a certain direction.
Regardless, her new Evolutionary Line and vessel were massive upgrades, and she had gained some of the benefits of a constrictor while growing larger. In addition to that, Snek was fairly certain that her new form was larger than it would have been if she had gone through with the 'Small Venomous Snake' option. With her new totem, she might even be able to fly if she ate a bird, but something told her that might be a bit of a stretch. She would need to explore the benefit of the new totem before making such a grand claim.
Frustratingly, there were no hints or point requirements listed for evolving again. She figured it wouldn’t for some time, as her System appeared to be drained of energy. It looked especially bland due to the expanded size of its core. That was fine, for now, as she could fill it with ‘experience’, as the previous notification stated. She could reevaluate later if she still didn’t have a clue once it was filled with energy.
For now, though, Snek compiled a mental list of the next steps should take to grow stronger:
- Find the flowers so Kor could help increase her poison resistance.
- Earn Evolution Points and purchase the mana core.
- Experiment with the mana core and try to ‘create new spells’.
- Hunt and consume creatures with interesting abilities.
- Potentially eat Meaty and mutate based on whatever his ability is.
Having oriented herself and fully explored her new gains, Snek returned her focus to the ongoing conversation between Kor and Blood.
‘It’s because he was from the other tribe,” the goblin woman answered in response to Blood's most recent question.
“Is that’s why he’s so much bigger too?”
Kor nodded, “The tribe had many warriors. They hunted big enemies, and had lots of feasts. Because he is son of the old Chief, he is big and strong, but also got good pick of food.”
The goblin woman turned to look back towards Mog, who had picked up the large rat and was once again holding it in his arms. Meaty, on the other hand, was asleep and snoring disproportionately loud for his relatively small frame.
“But shouldn’t the other goblins like that he’s strong?” Blood asked innocently.
Kor lowered her voice, “Other goblins think Mog is coward. Jigz told them Mog ran when tribe was killed.”
“Did he?”
“Kor doesn’t think so. Mog said that he was trapped outside of cavern by a big blue wall when it happened. Jigz thinks Mog lies, or might not, but wanted to blem someone.” She answered.
“That sounds like one of the gates the book talked about.” Snek interjected.
Kor nodded in agreement, “If Snek and tribe grows stronger, might prove Mog was telling the truth.”
“How?” Blood asked. Snek turned toward it in their mind, and realized that it must not remember everything from before it gained consciousness.
“The author of the book theorized that the gates, potentially like the one Mog encountered, were created once the power level of all the monsters in an area reached a certain level,” She explained, before turning to Kor, “Is the tribe close to the level of the previous tribe if you include me?”
Kor shook her head, “Not yet. Maybe soon? Don’t know.”
Snek wasn’t sure if Blood had listened, because the next thing it asked was completely off topic.
“If Mog was the old chief’s son, and your daughter Tor was the old chief’s mate, does that mean Mog is your grandson?”