“The practice of bringing aspiring academics into the gates to be escorted by the climbers is, unfortunately, too recent to confirm several long standing theories about the world, or worlds, beyond the gates. However, there are many rumors of climbers experiencing near identical zones ever since the Tower rose from the bowels of the planet.

  If these rumors are to be believed and thus explored theoretically, then what would cause a gate to open multiple times to the same zone? Is it possible that the gate connects once the aggregate power of monsters in the specified location reaches a certain level? If so, are the monsters aware that they are being systematically culled by whatever supreme power facilitates the Tower? For what purpose would the said culling be taking place?”

  -Excerpt from Ruth Gabbinstone’s, An In-Depth Exploration of Tower Related Portals and Dimensions

  The little snake was wrapped around a rung of the ladder, watching as Kor and Mog reorganized various sections of the hut to make room for their current endeavors. Mog would pick up various bits and bobs of trash before Kor would snatch them away and delicately place them amidst a different heap of random odds and ends. Any progress made was slow and labor intensive.

  Over the course of the next day, they cleared out three sections in the old goblin’s hut, but due to nothing actually being disposed of, the piles that remained continued to grow. The first area they cleared was for Meaty to rest and recover from the Rat Race. It wasn’t anything fancy. It consisted of a large cookpot next to a sturdy looking stool. Kor had poured in the last of red healing liquid in and had cut it with a water based herbal cocktail, pouring enough to form a shallow pool in the cookpot.

  Meaty lay in there now, having fallen asleep. The flesh of his mutilated arm was slowly knitting back together as snores echoed out from the basin that Snek had once received medical attention in. A soggy and porous clump of moss sat atop the stool, and she knew that Mog would use it to bathe the oversized rat once the other sections of the hut were cleaned out. Snek was just happy she wouldn’t be involved in that bizarre scenario.

  The second section featured a previously concealed desk that had been buried beneath a large pile of cracked leather armor, boots riddled with holes, and strangely enough, a pair of assless chaps. The little snake looked everywhere except at the chaps as Kor quickly tucked them deep into a different pile, before coughing and continuing on like nothing had happened.

  Kor and Mog brought the earned herbalism components up into the hut, and placed them on the desk, organizing the section into a compact alchemical workstation. The goblin woman had dug through numerous piles of unorganized rubbish to produce two mortar and pestle sets, candles, and multiple glass jugs - all of which were in various states of disrepair. Kor had assured her that they were intact enough to serve their intended purposes, and while Snek had some doubts as to the veracity of those claims, she was more inclined to trust her friend.

  The third and final location cleared out was a small open space with a comfortable blanket stretched across the floor. It was where Snek was planning to evolve, and as the two goblins finished up their tasks, the little snake slithered down onto the blanket and opened up her options for evolution.

  She had made up her mind, and mentally selected the second option. However, when she went to confirm, nothing happened. The screen flickered, similar to what had happened with the [redacted] message she had received not so long ago, before again disappearing altogether. Once again a new window opened up to take its place.

  This time, the new window wasn’t an edited version of the first. It was decidedly different. To start, it was purple instead of blue. The font was twisted and sharp, and gave the feeling of a wild beast when compared to the standard font her system used. In the center of the screen was a single word with a question mark: Evolve?

  Snek would be lying if she said she wasn’t expecting her Evolutionary Map to change in some way, but this drastic change easily surpassed her expectations. Where had her options gone? What would she be consenting to if she confirmed?

  Still, she was determined.

  As she sent her affirmation to the strange screen, a rush of heat swept through her and energy blossomed within the core of the Ecdysis System. Snek peered inward, and saw the core growing more luminescent by the second. More and more energy roiled within her system, periodically sending out waves that infused her muscles, tissues, and bones. Her body drank it in greedily, and their body shone with power.

  When their body could not accept any more, it began to expand. The rapid growth took from the quantity of infused energy, but it was rapidly replaced. Snek began to worry as their skin grew tight and began to itch, but the process did not let up. The core continued to grow brighter, and the energy built much faster than her body could possibly absorb.

  The core began to forcefully grow from the pressure of its own power, expanding outward, mirroring the snake’s body. The energy continued to grow, quickly surpassing the system core’s new limit, and began to escape its bounds. The expelled energy hovered in the immediate space surrounding the core. Their still growing form siphoned some of the energy away, but not enough to impede the rate it grew at.

  Snek looked at Blood in confusion, but it had retracted its mental projection into itself, the consciousness sleeping as the fundamental instincts it grew from forcibly took control of their body, directing them to move.

  They slithered off the blanket and to the edge of the small clearing, brushing up against random objects in Kor’s collection. Something dug into the outer layer of their skin, and the skin popped free, slowly peeling back from her head and providing a small relief to the building pressure.

  It wasn’t enough. Snek looked back to her core, and saw that the expelled energy had begun to move and collide with itself. The particles had begun to grow through the rapid collisions, forced together while shining incandescently. It was violent, yet it was the most beautiful thing Snek had ever seen.

  It called to her.

  Her consciousness darted forward into the maelstrom of energy, the floating motes glomming onto and quickly enveloping her. In an instant, she was covered in the energy of her system, mental sight veiled in bright light before fading into darkness.

  A solitary lizard stretched out atop a massive boulder that was wedged into the foot of a large mountain. It basked in the rays of a noonday sun. The skink’s only companion was the heat that rose from the rock and distorted the air around its large form.

  It was the largest reptile in the vicinity. In fact, it was now the only lizard for miles in every direction.

  The reptile had quickly outgrown the others of its species. Unlike its peers, the more the lizard ate the more it grew. It ate. It grew. It slept. The various beetles and crickets the skink had hunted while young had not been enough to quell the raging hunger. Before long, the skink had turned to cannibalising other lizards and reptiles to fuel its growth, and it had recently finished that task.

  So now the lizard basked in the sun. However, when the lizard moved to adjust its tail, the boulder it lay atop unexpectedly shifted. All at once the confused lizard was thrown to the ground as the boulder stood up, towering above the skink and drowning it in unwanted shade.

  The lizard’s senses returned just as a large section of rock slammed down on its forelimb. With a ruthlessness similar to when it turned on its species, the skink turned on its own body. It detached the limb with a wet schlopp before rapidly waddling away from the elemental.

  The escape was thrilling. Somehow, losing the limb caused satisfaction in the lizard. The recent modification had pushed its body closer to perfection, and it briefly considered returning to the elemental so that it could finish the job. The skink’s instincts fought against those desires, and the brief ecstasy of the limb being removed quickly shifted into a sharp disgust that reached out and lacerated its consciousness.

  It was enough for Snek to rip herself free, briefly overlaying her senses with a two foot zone of awareness. She was currently fleeing on three legs through the sparsely wooded forest, yet also slithering forward and pulling free from a husk of unwanted skin.

  The vastly different realities briefly intertwined, overwhelming Snek’s consciousness. A notification added itself into the chaos before she drifted away yet again.

  Lurking beneath a recently settled layer of silt and detritus, an ancient turtle lay pressed into the ever shifting floor of the estuary. It could wait as long as needed, as the magically enhanced lining of its throat and cloaca actively pulled oxygen from the surrounding water.

  Approaching amidst a cloud of recently fertilized eggs, a pair of eels drew close to the hidden reptile. With a whoosh and snap, the turtle’s hooked beak sped through the brackish water and latched onto the nearest eel, quickly ripping into the slippery body.

  A puff of blood obscured the turtle as it gorged itself, before slowly dispersing away through the churning waters. The blood caught the attention of multiple striped sharks, and it wasn’t long before the occupied turtle was barraged by attacks from every direction. Avoiding any fatal injuries, it withdrew into the keratin reinforced shell, but quickly realized it would not be enough to withstand the serrated fangs of its attackers.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Light shone from the turtle as its form twisted inside the shell. The muscles in its neck and front appendages quickly lost mass, becoming defined and agile. With a muted pop, it detached from the shell as the webbing between its toes grew thicker and more resistant to the surrounding water. Its scales also lost density as the creature reformed itself into something built for stealth and speed.

  The shell imploded and many rows of teeth snapped shut slightly above the changed creature. Anticipating a meal that never came, the shark pulled back and created an opening. Unbeknownst to its attackers, the reptile escaped into the swirling darkness and burrowed itself beneath the mucky floor in a deft swoop.

  The relative safety encouraged the creature to acknowledge the growing unease within itself. It had abandoned its form easily, without pride or regret. Shame roiled in the shared consciousness, pulling Snek out and into partial awareness once again. She gazed again at the notification, before the cycle repeated itself.

  Snek’s consciousness was repeatedly shunted through numerous different minds and experiences. Each had been incompatible to her Evolutionary Path, and the brief moments she surfaced after each vision left her shrouded in a confused haze of inconsistencies.

  Some of the vessels she temporarily inhabited had limbs. Some flew through the air and others slithered on the ground. Regardless, each vessel was wrong. Whether it be the shape of the vessel or the behavior it demonstrated, she was always violently separated in the end. If it wasn’t so disorienting, Snek might have appreciated the novel experience. As far as she could remember, she had never had quills that poked through her back, soft flesh instead of scales, or in the most novel experience yet - thumbs.

  Unfortunately, being stuck in a seemingly endless loop of being grafted to foreign consciousnesses was not enjoyable, no matter how unique of an experience it was. Each time she briefly surfaced to read the same message: Vessel incompatible. Hybridization failed. Regenerating.

  During the temporary respites, she took solace in the rapidly fleeting feeling of her true body, and yearned for her torment to end.

  Once majestic, the ancient tree’s crown lay trapped in the embrace of its rival’s canopy. The trunk that once reached to the heavens was splintered, broken, and imprisoned. Wrapped repeatedly around the broken branch, a long ivory snake gazed through the forest with bright green eyes.

  The snake did not care for the history of its perch. It cared only for the hunt. Observing its surroundings through the shallow pits adorning its snout, the snake scanned the neighboring branches looking for the bright yellows and reds that signified prey.

  Its forked tongue flicked out of its mouth, but the sense that won the day was not any type of vision or smell. A distant and desperate mewling caught the snake's attention, drifting on the wind from the bounds of its territory. It envisioned sinking its fangs into the mewling creature, the brief crunch of delicate fur covered bones, and the inevitable feelings of satiation that accompanied each meal.

  One sun had set, and the other neared the horizon, slowly but surely bringing darkness to the forest. It didn’t matter to the snake, as it used other senses to traverse the branches of the canopy, but the darkness brought with it another voice.

  It was a high pitched and ragged plea that echoed through the trees. “Help! Please help me!” It yelled, before devolving into sobs.

  The snake paused. Had the mewling feline received aid? Had its hunt come to a premature end? When the mewling once again continued, so did the snake. It was nearing its prey as yet another voice called through the trees.

  “No! Please! Spare her!” This voice was deep and powerful, yet also bathed in hysterics.

  The voices alternated, but they sounded the same each time. Part of the snake’s consciousness realized that the words were always the same, but the majority did not care. The snake had reached its destination, and it gazed down in surprise at the humanoid bird creature. Its leg caught in a many toothed trap.

  As the snake lowered itself through the branches and onto the forest floor, the bird creature tried a different tactic. Instead of yelling, mewling, or begging for mercy like it had previously, it opened its beak and let out the snarling growl of a large predator. The snake recognized the sound as belonging to the pack of mangy wolves that occasionally encroached on its territory.

  Unfortunately for the kenku, none of its stored voices could prevent the large ivory snake from constricting its weak form, crushing it before subsequently devouring it whole.

  As the snake digested, it noticed bright red flames reaching above the tops of distant trees. Slowly, it approached amidst the sounds of numerous panicked voices. Large wooden structures burned just beyond the crowd. The snake had never been this close to the edge of its territory before. It had an idea, and stealthily found a burrow located a short distance away from the hysterical bipedal creatures.

  Raising its scaled head to the sky, the green-eyed reptile opened its mouth, forming the familiar words for the first time.

  “Help! Please help me!”

  As one of the bipedal creatures broke from the group to investigate, Snek gently split from the ivory snake’s consciousness and turned to face it. She felt a rush of approval and acceptance as the green eyes observed her.