Snek slithered through the small doorway at the end of the trap room, making her way into the next section of the Rat Race. She tossed the figurative keys to her body over to Snake Brain, and opened up her notifications. She had the obligatory notification informing her that she had slain the “Average Bald Rat Trickster”. Killing it had given her enough kill energy to push her to the next level, and she briefly considered where to designate her new attribute point.

  Thinking back to being ambushed by the bald rat, and the subsequent bite wound, she considered putting the point into Constitution. Moving it up to fourteen would give her a nice little boost to her durability. Then again, if she had more wisdom, she could have noticed her enemy creeping up on her in the first place and avoided the injury all together.

  As her body continued to move under the guidance of Snake Brain, she mentally assigned and then retracted the point multiple times before eventually finalized it. She had, once again, put the point into strength. It was now at six.

  She could feel the slight trail of blood she was leaving on the floor, the realization brought a modicum of guilt and shame. I’m too impulsive, she thought, chastising herself. Yet how could she ever be considered strong with a Strength attribute of five? At least now it was at an even number, and she would notice a slight improvement. She also needed to increase her Strength for the evolution she was considering.

  Sighing mentally, Snek observed the next section of the obstacle course. Her first thought was that it looked like a miniature version of Kor’s hut. Broken glass, pieces of broken weaponry, and small chunks of rusted metal were heaped into numerous piles and spread wall to wall.

  Passively, she noticed that the majority of the refuse was stained with various degrees of aged and dried blood. Snek wondered how many rats had died here, and hoped she wouldn’t catch any serious diseases as she picked her way through the piles of debris.

  Spaced periodically throughout and above the narrow stretch of wall to wall sharps, she made out the glint of barely visible razor wire and lengths of barbed wire. She could easily go under them, but any creature taller than her would have an unfortunate surprise if they weren’t paying attention to their surroundings.

  She made her way around a large pile of broken glass, and saw the expeditious rat that had made it to this section unphased. The overly ordinary rodent was a few feet ahead of her, gingerly crawling over the broken top half of a bottle. Grease shone from the surface of the glass, yet the rat atop it was unaffected by the slimy texture.

  As she studied the rat, she felt her Stealth skill activate and noticed a marked improvement on Snake Brain’s navigation through the hazardous material. Apparently finding the best footing for keeping quiet overlapped nicely with not getting impaled.

  How did that rat make it through the last section without triggering any traps? Snek wondered as she gained on the frustrating rodent. At least it was exposed now, and it wouldn’t be long before she sank her fangs into its body. Maybe then the perfect little rat would have at least one distinguishing characteristic.

  Inexplicably, the rat began gaining speed. Did it detect her? As the basic rat turned around a corner, it glanced warily in her direction. It saw her!

  Something is off about this rat, Snek mused. Her Snake Brain agreed, her instincts churning into a jangled mass of discomfort. Focusing completely on the picture perfect rat, an explanation of what was happening began to take shape in her mind. The way it navigated through the sharp piles of trash was slightly wrong: a foot placed unnecessarily far away from a gleaning blade. A razor's edge embedded in the wall piercing its fur, leaving behind no trace of contact. There wasn’t a hair out of place, let alone any wound to speak of.

  When the rat stepped on an overlooked sliver of wood poking up from the floor, it phased right through its paw without inciting a reaction, confirming her suspicions.

  It’s an illusion.

  A slight popping sound accompanied by a release of ambient pressure informed the little snake of a system notification, but she pushed it away for now. It wasn’t the time. She continued tracking the illusory rat, and now that she knew what she was looking for, she noticed numerous similar instances that confirmed her suspicions.

  One of the goblins observing the race was cheating with a fake rat! She had to give the goblin credit - it was a genius, if fragile, idea. Now she just needed to clue in the rest of the goblins to what was happening.

  Speaking of the goblins, her audience was getting more and more rowdy. She wondered if they too had noticed the illusion, but ruled it out as unlikely at best. They wouldn’t notice it unless she showed them. Perhaps she could cause a large portion of wall to fall onto the illusory rat to clue them in.

  Taking that action would alert her onlookers to her spellcasting, however, and she would rather keep it as a secret trump card if possible. She could also feel a mental pressure building in her mind. It was a persistent headache, and she innately understood its cause. Her ring of telekinesis had a hidden cost.

  While it said that she could cast it at will, actually doing so was strenuous. She could feel her Adaptive Resistance at work, and attributed the sensation to her ‘mental delirium’ resistance. Her skill was slowly draining away the uncomfortable pressure, but Snek knew that each successive cast pushed her closer and closer to an unknown edge.

  Kor hadn’t mentioned anything about this, so she likely didn’t have to deal with the same limit. Snek wondered if it was caused by not being a true spellcaster or if she hadn’t finished acclimating to the magical item.

  Either way, she decided to limit her use of the telekinesis spell for the time being. If she overused it and ended up putting herself into some kind of stupor, she was as good as dead.

  The crowd continued to roar in the background of her racing thoughts, and she slowed her pursuit of the illusory rat. Coming to a stop, she gazed up through the netted wire ceiling at the observing crowd. Almost all of them were looking behind her, their eyes locked on a previous section of The Rat Race.

  She searched the crowd for Kor, hoping to somehow signal the situation with the illusory rat. They hadn’t come up with a code, but with the other goblins distracted, it was the perfect time to try some-

  A significant boom cut her thoughts short. The ground shook in a chorus of clinking glass and rattling bits of metal. Another boom sent a fresh wave of sound through the room, and she turned towards the intruding sound.

  The goblins grew eerily quiet and the ambient rattling came to a rest. Snek stared at the wall a few feet back, near the broken bottle the illusory rat had been walking on, when her Snake Brain screamed of danger and she turned to flee.

  The loudest boom yet echoed through the chamber as wood chips ripped through the air. Most embedded themselves in the opposite wall, but a few shot into the piles of metal and glass and caused bits of shrapnel to explode outwards and briefly obscure her view. The barbed wire strung from wall to wall swung chaotically, frantically trying to dislodge from the wall mountings.

  I shouldn’t have taught him how to do that, Snek thought as Meaty stepped through the new hole in the wall. He strutted into her section of the course, walking on his hind legs and flexing his biceps for the onlooking crowd.

  She looked closer at the large rat. The leg she had sunk her fangs into was covered in webbed black veins, the skin between having shifted to a dull grey color. The venom had traversed slightly as well, peeking through the thinner hair of his inner thigh. It was doing its work, yet still wasn’t enough to overcome whatever skill the rat was using to stay on his feet.

  He had also picked up another injury. The skin of Meaty’s right hand was multiple shades darker than the rest of his body. Looking more closely, she determined that one of the wire nooses from the previous trap room was cinched around his muscular forearm like a tourniquet - cutting off the circulation and glinting in the light as the cord dragged across the floor behind him.

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  Did he pull the noose away from the hut goblins? Snek wondered in astonishment. What would his Strength attribute need to be to accomplish that?

  The rat’s face twisted into a mockingly arrogant smile as he turned to face her. His pupils were dilated so completely that his eyes looked like black pits. Snek found herself questioning if Meaty really was a rat, or some other kind of monster wearing his skin.

  He lurched forward in Snek’s direction, continuing to walk bipedally and paying little mind to the array of sharp materials on the ground before him. Stomping forward, his feet crushed bits of glass and bent the points of any metal shards that made contact with his skin. He did not take any new wounds.

  Snake Brain continued with its task of evasion, and Snek readied herself to use telekinesis. Panic flowed through their bond as Meaty lifted the broken bottle into the air and flung it towards the little snake. She flung her body to the side, avoiding the bottle but accruing multiple shallow lacerations from the trapped surroundings.

  The bottle shattered, and Snek pushed through the mental fatigue to lift the largest piece of broken glass, adjusting it to lay angled on the ground in the footpath of the large rat. She held it in place, ready to reinforce its stability if needed.

  Unheeding of the slight movement, Meaty stomped down onto the greasy shard of glass with his injured leg. His foot slipped to the side, causing the leg to buckle and sending him careening into the wall. The large rat’s shoulder and upper pectoral muscle drug across a wickedly sharp blade protruding from the wall of the enclosure.

  Thinking that this might finally be the end of the physically enhanced monstrosity, Snek urged her Snake Brain to slow down. Meaty hesitated briefly, before snarling and dropping down to move on all fours. He turned slightly to get back on the narrow path, exposing the potentially wounded shoulder.

  Snek only saw bare skin. The exposed blade had sheared off the large rat’s fur, but had not been able to breach the dark and wrinkled flesh. Disgusting, she commented, darting behind a large pile of sharp trash, attempting to activate her stealth skill.

  The tell tale build of power that led to a skill activation began, but before it could finish, her vision exploded into random shrapnel. Meaty’s face and shoulders stood where the pile once was.

  Luckily for her, Snek Brain hadn’t hesitated to take stock of the situation, and was already darting away towards the exit and the next section of the course.

  What followed was a desperate and bloody chase. At the elevated pace, her Snake Brain couldn’t avoid the numerous sharp edges of glass and metal. Small lacerations appeared all along the snake’s lithe form, and the ground below her grew slick with blood as she barely kept ahead of the large rat.

  The accumulation of numerous small cuts and corresponding pain was building into an overhanging cloud of erratic distraction that hung over her mind. Her thoughts slowed to a sluggish pace, and were focused on the overwhelming pain of her injuries.

  Snek was certain she would be dead if she didn’t have her Snake Brain. The bundle of instincts she had isolated in her mind seemed unaffected by the pain that was bogging her down, continuing through the refuse with the single minded and ever determined goal of escape.

  Without it, she would have long since fallen to the pain and been killed by the monstrous rat hunting her. The pain had become an ocean, and she was drowning in it. Unsure of how much time was passing, Snek tried to force her way through the tides, and was helped by a light popping sound. Her system sent her a lifeline as she struggled, and a rush of soothing cold began at her system's core and pushed through her body.

  She pushed the multiple notifications away, completely focused on peeling back the layers of pain that had been suffocating her freedom of thought. Her awareness slowly grew to encompass her surroundings, and she stepped out of the haze of pain and back onto the battlefield. The pain was still there, but it was much more manageable.

  She was still moving through the piles of broken glass and metal, and Meaty was gaining on her. The goblin crowd held their breath in hitched silence, assuming that the excitement was about to come to an end.

  Searching her surroundings for something to help, the little snake’s eyes landed on a low hanging length of barbed wire that stretched from wall to wall a foot ahead of her. She activated her telekinesis skill, and felt the corresponding mental pressure reach new heights.

  She pushed through the pressure with an iron force of will, dragging shards of broken glass, bits of daggers and other weaponry, rusty chunks of metal, and even some bloody tufts of flesh and bone together into a pile ahead of her.

  She doubled down on her spell, crushing and compressing the miscellaneous items together until they were reforged into a small and gory platform. Snek instructed her Snake Brain to slow down as she crossed the newly created platform, feeding it with as much potential magic energy as possible.

  Meaty, who clearly never skipped leg day, bent his powerful legs to pounce on his prey. He leapt through the air, closing in on Snek’s position. Just before he landed atop her, she released the stored energy she had been pouring into the created platform, sending it up to collide with the enormous rat.

  The platform batted him up into the air, and he cartwheeled briefly before colliding with the barbed wire. The cord attached to his wounded wrist whipped through the air, but didn’t get caught in anything as she had hoped. His body briefly folded around the wire and Snek noticed several barbs pierce through his exposed skin. Blood ran down the impaled barbs, but his skill stopped them from pushing in very far.

  Still, all damage was good damage.

  As he started to fall back down to the floor, his good hand wrapped around the barbed wire. He hung from his good hand briefly, before using it to pull his entire body upwards until his chin was above the hanging wire. The crowd cheered at the display of strength.

  A one handed pull-up? In the middle of all of this? Snek couldn’t help but feel slightly discouraged.

  Meaty pulled up his wounded hand to grasp the barbed wire, pushing himself up while fully extending his arms, holding the wire against his waist. He held his form rigid in that position briefly to the adulation of the crowd, before snapping his body down and ripping the barbed wire from its wall sockets.

  He landed on the floor with a thud, before standing on his hind legs and brandishing his new whip in his good hand.

  He brought forth the barbed wire, causing it to whistle menacingly, arcing through the air directly above Snek. She could somehow feel the minute adjustments of air pressure caused by the whip, and frantically used her telekinesis to adjust its course slightly.

  The wire slammed down directly next to her, sending small chunks of metal exploding outward, while shattering the small chunks of glass. Surprisingly, none of the shrapnel collided with her body, and she kept moving past the cloud of glittering dust that rose into the air.

  Meaty wrenched his whip out of the ground, his strength enough to pull the barbs free from where they had embedded into the wooden floor. He cracked the whip again and again, crashing down and threatening to gore the little snake.

  Each time the wire drew near, she used her spell to push it slightly aside and out of the way. Snake Brain did its best to help, diving back and forth while angling their body to minimize the need of her spell.

  It was not sustainable. Even with Snake Brain’s help, the mental pressure caused from her spell’s usage was threatening to push past her limit. As soon as she would breach the large rat’s range, he would bound forward and begin the process again.

  She looked back briefly, as the large rat wound up to release his whip yet again, and the small reflection of light on his wounded hand caught her eye. The cord from the previous section of the Rat Race was still connected to his wrist and trailing behind him.

  Snek focused, pushing through the obscene amount of mental pressure, and grasped the end of the cord with her telekinesis. She quickly wound it around bits of metal, and through the slivers of wood in the floor created by Meaty’s violent assault. She tied it to anything and everything she could in a desperate plea to give herself some breathing room.

  Snake Brain realized what she was trying to do, and, to her great surprise, lent her some of its untapped mental energy. Working together in a desperate gambit, they completed their task in a fraction of a second. When Meaty attempted to bring his whip forward, his body lurched to a stop and was yanked backwards - his wounded hand stuck in place.

  The large rat lost his balance and tumbled to the floor.

  Snek paused to collect herself, admiring her work as Meaty scrambled to his feet and began attempting to wrench his wounded arm free. She had tied the wire to many different objects and the wall, yet as he heaved she heard it groan briefly. Still, it held fast for now.

  Meaty stood in a wide legged stance, his wounded leg braced on the ground and facing Snek. She knew the cord wouldn’t hold for long, but couldn’t resist the burning temptation to punish the large rat. She lunged forward, closing the distance to his wounded leg in the fraction of a second. Snek hadn’t been sure that she would be able to break through the rat’s skill-enhanced skin, but that didn’t stop her from pushing her fangs into the preexisting wound to deposit an additional payload of venom.

  Meaty writhed in pain, collapsing to the floor and letting out a strangled whine. He swept down his uninjured hand in a frantic attempt to grab the little snake’s head, but she was already gone, darting away down the narrow path the large rat had created with his barbed wire whip.

  She wondered if she could have finished him off as she fled, but she still had the problem of the illusory rat to deal with. Snek also hoped that the cord would restrain Meaty long enough that her venom would finish the job for her, but Snake Brain knew she would see him again before the race was through.