With a last look back at her biggest catch, who was still rolling on the floor with his arm cinched tight, Snek exited this section of the Rat Race and moved on to the next. She slithered through the tunnel, and was greeted by a wall of sound as she came out the other end. Loud metal clanks were interspersed with hisses of released steam. Underneath the clamor, the low and persistent whirring of machinery droned continuously. Taking a moment to adjust to her new surroundings, Snek scanned the room.

  The walls of the section were wooden, but were surprisingly cut from freshly downed trees. They weren’t interspersed with rotted out chunks or riddled with cracks. The goblins apparently kept this section of the Rat Race in pristine condition, and she could see why. Lines of numerous gears of various sizes periodically climbed the wall and connected to a large overarching mechanism.

  The floor of the section consisted of spinning gears and delicately carved wooden spacers. The gears were all connected by small protruding teeth, and spun slowly in opposing directions. Most of the larger gears appeared to be modified to add numerous holes that led down into a noisy dark pit.

  Snek slithered over to the edge of the first gear and waited for one of the slowly approaching holes. When it spun towards her in a lazy arc, she lifted her head over the hole and peered down through it and into the darkness. She briefly made out a chaotic mess of metal and wiring, but was interrupted as her Snake Brain pushed a pulse of dread through their mental connection. She felt a rush of wind brush past her jaw as she yanked her head back and away from the hole.

  A large metal spike, sharpened down to a fine point, briefly remained where her head had just been, before quickly retracting down and through the hole in the gear. An onlooker would have missed it if they blinked, the spike having come and gone in the fraction of a second.

  Snek looked across the rotating floor in front of her for a place to peer down into the pit below, but there wasn’t a single space not occupied. Maybe some of these goblins are smarter than I give them credit for, she thought, slithering delicately onto the large gear in front of her while making sure to avoid the holes and subsequent spikes.

  Acting on a hunch, she lowered her body onto the gear as the room slowly turned around her and closed her eyes. She focused intently on the surrounding sounds and smells: the steady rumbling of the gear below her, the warm breeze that wafted up through the holes, and the greasy smell of oil.

  She tuned in to the low hum of the connected machinery, and an image started forming in her mind. The way the various sounds echoed through the enclosed chamber and slightly shook the large gear painted the picture of a pillar leading down from the center of the gear. It connected to the excited whirring of smaller gears, which reached out and connected to various latches and even more gears that ran up the wall.

  Just as the image was solidifying and filling in the blank parts with vivid detail, the all too familiar pop of a system notification startled her out of the semi-entranced state she had put herself into. Snek jerked up in surprise, the end of her tail swishing over one of the holes and narrowly avoiding being impaled by a spike.

  Ugh. Fine! I’ll check my damn notifications! She mentally yelled, taking deep breaths to slow her racing heart and fraying nerves. Of course her system had to pop in and interrupt her right when she was figuring out a new skill. Acknowledging that she was only upset because she had been startled, Snek begrudgingly pulled up her notifications as Snake Brain began carving a path across the rotating gears.

  A new skill! That certainly explained a few things about the last section of the course. She thought, pulling up the description for Keen Senses.

  She realized that this skill was the reason she had been able to sense the barbed wire Meaty had been using as a whip while hunting her down. It didn’t explain the brief bubble of awareness that she had just experienced before being rudely interrupted, but that curiosity was sure to answer itself soon.

  Vague yet still helpful. Now she had a name for the uncomfortable pressure that built in her mind each time she used her telekinesis spell. Interestingly enough, it didn’t explain what would happen if the mana backlash passed the mental threshold she had detected. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to find out. Next.

  Snek had conflicted feelings at being rewarded directly with upgrades for the suffering she went through, but still couldn’t help but feel excited. Each resistance that was added to her skill made her stronger, and the whole reason she was participating in the Rat Race was so that Kor could gain the materials necessary to microdose her with poison in the hopes of upgrading her poison resistance and the potency of her venom.

  Her frustration towards her system began to lessen and be replaced with a bouncy anticipation of the message to come. She tempered her expectations, and reminded herself that the distraction caused by the system notification had nearly gotten her killed. As the thought left her mind, a new and smaller window appeared in front of the current notification. It read, “Would you like to suppress system notifications in moments that require heavy focus?”

  It would have been nice to know that was an option sooner, she thought, sassing her system and affirming. She pulled up the notification she had been waiting for.

  I’m on a roll! Snek thought with more than a hint of pride. She had tried to earn new skills for days with no progress, and now the notifications were absolutely flooding in. Perhaps she gained skills at an increased rate relative to her current challenge?

  Regardless, Snek closed her notifications and turned her senses inward. She focused on her Ecdysis System, and noticed something peculiar. It was holding onto an exceedingly large amount of energy, whatever it was building was obviously nearing completion. Was it a new skill?

  No, that can’t be right. It’s too much energy. She tried to puzzle it out for a few seconds, but decided that there was really no way to know and she would have to just be patient. Still, now that she knew what to look for, perhaps it was possible to actively monitor skill growth. It would be nice to have a bit more control over the whole process.

  Focusing on her newly upgraded skill, she felt the bubble of awareness expand outwards in every direction. While she couldn’t see everything happening with her eyes, it was as if all of her senses came together to paint a vivid and moving picture of her surroundings. She was able to fully make out the mechanisms below the platform of spinning gears. She could now more easily visualize the spikes below, and noticed that the spikes were spinning in time with the gear.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Running a quick mental appraisal of herself, Snek noted that using this ability did not increase any type of mental strain. No mana backlash, no exhaustion, nothing. She could keep this bubble of awareness active at all times if she wanted - which she did. It also wasn’t distracting, and she acclimatized to all of the new information almost instantaneously.

  I can’t wait to tell Kor about this, she mused, This is so cool.

  Yet even with all of this new information readily available, Snek still couldn’t fully understand how this complex bit of machinery actually worked. How did it know when to send up the spike? Was there a way to deactivate the whole system? Would she even want to do that if she could?

  Snek decided that none of the answers to those questions actually mattered at the moment. All she had to do was avoid the holes in the floor - which was exceedingly easy for her Snek Brain, who had made it halfway across the floor by this point, and was turning a corner that led to final stretch of the section. The holes were spaced throughout the gears in a way that would cause serious problems for pudgy rat bodies, but Snek’s lithe frame easily and quickly navigated past them.

  Moving with the rotation of the gear also gave her the feeling that she was moving faster than normal, which she was a big fan of. She could just imagine the frustrated look on Jigz’s face as he watched her breeze through this section of the course.

  Feeling her instincts flare, she focused her attention as she turned the corner. Ahead of her, weaving gingerly back and forth across the spinning gears, was the illusory rat. Whichever goblin had cast the spell was really selling it, because the rat was hardly making any progress. She wondered if they could see through the rats eyes, but doubted it. There were too many small mistakes for them to have a close up view of its surroundings.

  Snek wanted to dart towards it and sink her fangs into its illusionary haunches, but she knew that plan wouldn't work. She needed to take the caster by surprise, because they might be able to modify its appearance at will to react to her. Exposing the rat as a fraud to the watching goblins was essential if she wanted to win the race.

  Biding her time, she had her Snake Brain continue navigating across the last stretch of gears. She passed the illusory rat after a few seconds, keeping her distance but staying within the range of her bubble of awareness. Directly contrasting with what her eyes were seeing, her new zone of awareness, there was no rat awkwardly shuffling to the side and side-eyeing her.

  Snek made eye contact, the rat's beady eyes following her as she gracefully slid past it. She stuck her forked tongue out at it - not entirely sure why she was doing it, but finding it amusing nonetheless.

  The goblin crowd was laughing at the brief exchange, but died down as she hopped off the last gear and onto the ending platform. Slowly turning around, she coiled her body and readied herself to enact her quickly thought up plan. She had gotten an idea as she gazed into that beady little eye, and just might be able to make it work.

  Snek acknowledged that it was a high-risk plan, but thought she could pull it off if she used her new bubble of awareness in conjunction with the telekinesis spell. The most dangerous part would be her active status condition. She could feel the mana backlash. While it was slowly draining with the aid of her new resistance, the course wasn’t nearly long enough for it to be a meaningful amount. Until she upgraded her resistance or raised her wisdom stat, losing the status effect would be the work of hours or days.

  Still, she would need the spell if her plan was going to work. She waited, watching the illusory rat through the piercing gaze of her slitted pupils. It hesitated briefly, but continued moving towards her and the exit to the section.

  When it finally made it to the last large gear, Snek attempted to activate telekinesis. It was beyond difficult. The pressure from the mana backlash acted like a magical contraceptive, blocking her spell from activating. It felt like she was trying to catch an angry cloud with nothing but her fangs and a wish.

  With sheer mental obstinance she pushed through the pressure, shunning the imposed limit in the process. The spell activated. Reaching through her zone of awareness, Snek grasped one of the rotating spikes below the gear. With some quick guesstimations, she minutely adjusted her angle towards the rat and snapped forward at the rat while forcefully holding the spike down with her telekinesis.

  She had positioned herself so that her body was placed directly in between the rat and the exit to the section, blocking its path forward. To the watching goblins, it would appear like she misjudged her strike, her face in a collision course with the ground in front of the rats feet. The rat immediately reacted by jumping over her, moving through the air towards the platform.

  Snek was pretty sure that the rat shouldn’t be able to jump as high as it did, but it didn’t matter. She moved the middle of her body, exposing a hole in the gear just as the illusory rat passed over it. At the same time, she wrenched with her telekinesis spell forcing the spike upwards and through the illusory rat’s midsection.

  The rat’s body was seemingly unaffected by being violently impaled, the spike phasing through its hindquarters as it landed gently on the opposing platform. A collective gasp swept through the crowd of spectating goblins. Snek relinquished the spell and a massive swell of pain slammed into her mind. She smiled mentally as the darkness closed in.

  As Snek’s consciousness retreated further into her mind, Snake Brain was left staring at the fake rat. It didn’t understand what had just happened, but had felt the echo of a strong pulse of pain through the link it shared with the guiding intelligence.

  It had also felt the smug satisfaction that had come along with the pain, so it figured that they had accomplished their goal. It was confused when the dead fake rat had suddenly vanished, and the angry chorus of goblins made Snake Brain want to slither away and hide.

  It didn’t know what had happened to the guiding intelligence, and wanted it to come back. Snake Brain had never truly been alone before. It had been in complete control before the big change, and the guiding intelligence had felt shame at the actions it took while leading.

  It felt in the back corner of its mind while slithering over to the wall, and saw that it wasn’t completely alone. The other part of its mind was there, if asleep. But it wasn’t the time for sleep. She needed to come back and tell Snake Brain what to do.

  A sharp and burning pain erupted in their shared mind as the energy stored within the Ecdysis System finally completed its objective. Snake Brain rested its head on its coil, waiting for the blinding pain to pass. All of its fear rushed away, replaced by excitement.

  It remembered this.

  When the pain stopped, a blue screen popped into existence directly in front of Snake Brain.

  here.

  he act of casting off the outer layer of skin in order to prepare for new growth.