However, if the testimonies are studied in conjunction with the climber Retcon’s descriptions of the world beyond the gates of the 10th and 11th floor, it not only becomes plausible but probable that the gates do, in fact, lead to another world.”
- Excerpt from Ruth Gabbinstone’s, An In-Depth Exploration of Tower Related Portals and Dimensions
“... does that mean that Mog is your grandson?”
Kor’s bushy white eyebrow rose a couple inches above her shiny gold glasses, before glancing in the direction of the large goblin. She took a deep breath, looked back at Snek, and nodded, “Mog is Tor’s son.”
“So that’s why you like him?” Blood asked. Snek could feel confusion flowing through their bond, and for once, Snek agreed.
The goblin woman hesitated before responding, “Not many gobs remember Tor well…”
Snek didn’t like where this was going. She wanted to nurture her grudge towards the comparatively large goblin. While he had saved her life, Mog was one of the primary reasons her life had been in jeopardy in the first place. He had crushed part of her body beneath a large rock and helped to trap her in a death game while she was starving.
Kor’s spell picked up on the strong emotions radiating from Snek, and she spoke her next sentence with a low and measured pace, “Snek should not be mad at Mog. Mog is a good boy.”
Electing not to immediately respond, Snek glared at the goblin woman. Her pit organs picked up a slight change in temperature, and she noticed that Kor’s heart was beating faster than usual. Apparently her new sense could hint at emotions.
For the sake of her friend, Snek tried to see things from her point of view. It was difficult. She couldn’t see many redeeming qualities in the husky goblin, besides following Kor’s instructions and potentially being a good fighter. Was it because they were related? She didn’t understand that either, having hatched into life alone and in the middle of a seemingly abandoned forest.
Kor’s pulse continued to quicken as Snek continued to stare in silence. Weakly, she tried again, “Mog saved Snek when-”
“Saved me from himself!” Snek interrupted, a low hiss emanating through her fangs.
Silence grew in the goblin hut, broken only by Meaty’s loud snores in the opposite corner of the room. Kor and Snek stared at each other, clearly at an impasse. The goblin woman took a deep breath before breaking the silence.
“Kor can connect rat to Snek,” She said quietly, before severing the spell connecting them and calling Mog over. He lumbered over with the sleeping rat in his arms before holding Meaty out at his grandmother’s insistence.
Well I guess we are done with that conversation… Snek idly thought as Kor held the rat out, away from her body, and directly in front of Snek’s face. Her tattoos began to glow, and before long Snek could feel a new presence push up against her mind.
The shape of Meaty’s mind felt different to Snek than that of Kor or Blood, but she couldn’t put her fang on why. His mind felt different - alien and disconnected - in a fundamental and important way. While it was jarring to her senses, something about the rat’s mind felt incredibly familiar. There was recognition there, for some reason, but Snek couldn’t place why or how that made sense.
As she tried to figure it out, the rat's personality settled over the shape of his consciousness. It was overwhelmingly potent, and jarred her focus. Her brief peek behind the curtain was cut short, and likely only possible in the first place due to the rat being unconscious.
His personality was… overwhelming. While Kor’s felt like akin to stern comfort, Meaty’s felt like self-satisfaction and a drive for self-improvement. It felt like flexing while smugly gazing at your reflection. To a certain degree, it resonated with Snek. She didn’t consider herself to be this vain, though she had appreciated the color of her old scales.
Just like Meaty, Snek had a desire to grow stronger. Her desire, on the other hand, wasn’t solely based on pride for her physical appear-
“Isn’t the only reason you want the color changing scale mutation so that we can be red again?” Blood asked, interrupting her thoughts.
In her surprise and embarrassment, Snek reached out mentally and clamped down on her bond with Blood. Immediately, Blood’s emotions and presence vanished from her mental space. Their body swooned as she took control by default. She manually breathed for a few moments and her focus was redirected to her various senses. Meaty still dangled limply in Kor’s grasp in front of her. The goblin woman had started gently shaking the rat in an attempt to wake him up.
She pulled her attention back into her mental space, and observed her connection to the hatchling consciousness. She briefly studied how she was controlling it. It was as if Blood’s presence was a stream that flowed into the lake of her mind, and she had built a mental dam that stopped its flow.
Snek wondered if what she was doing was something that could be replicated to other minds, or used as some sort of mental defense in the future. She would need to investigate it further in the future, as she figured it may lead to her developing a new skill. This wasn’t the time, however. She had a rat to talk to, and while the privacy might be nice, Snek had grown used to Blood’s presence and its absence put her on edge.
She released her hold on the mental dam, and Blood’s consciousness snapped back into existence. Blood seemed completely unfazed, its mental projection still staring at her expectantly, waiting for an answer to the question it had asked.
“You’re… You’re right,” Snek said, and felt the waves of excitement and pride from Blood at her response. Did the hatchling consciousness not notice that she had suppressed it?
The tendrils of Blood’s consciousness seamlessly reintegrated itself into having control over their shared body. She could feel that it was only focused on the minor conversational victory, and didn’t pick up on anything strange having happened whatsoever.
Interesting, she thought. Snek would have to experiment with this more later, but it would have to wait - along with the various other absurdities the last few minutes had brought. Feelings of great amusement flowed from her connection with Blood, pulling Snek from her thoughts.
Apparently, while she had been otherwise distracted, Kor had moved on from lightly shaking Meaty. She had widened her stance slightly, using the more stable footing to violently shake the still sleeping rat.
Snek watched as he became a blur of grey fur and toned muscle. It was actually a bit impressive that Kor was able to do this. Beads of sweat escaped the goblin woman’s frantic mane of white hair, running down her forehead. Meaty continued to demonstrate his impressive yet concerning ability to remain asleep throughout the aggressive treatment.
The rat’s stubborn refusal to wake up only lasted until Kor switched to windmilling him in a circle, while using his tail as a handhold. This caused Meaty to abruptly snap into consciousness, using his tail and core muscles to angle his face towards Kor’s outstretched arm. His mouth was wide, long teeth glinting in the faint light as he attempted to clamp down onto her hand.
The goblin woman quickly adjusted the angle of her windmilling and released the rat - causing him to slam harshly down into the floor before he could make contact. Meaty quickly got to his feet, eyes darting around as he tensed his hindquarters and prepared to flee. Before he could, Blood snapped their head forward, enclosing their jaw around the rat’s head. They held their position, fangs grazing against his throat without actually puncturing his flesh.
“Do not run,” Snek said, reaching out and delivering the words into Meaty’s mind with a voice like hardened ice.
When the rat didn’t move, or respond, Blood slowly coiled around him while holding their jaw steady. Once he was suitably restrained within their coils, Blood lifted the rat up in front of their face. From the close proximity, Snek noticed numerous inflamed red bumps on the rat’s snout. Some even poked through his matted fur.
“Too many snakes,” Meaty said slowly, having figured out how to communicate through their connected minds.
The goblins gazed at the pair of creatures having a silent conversation. Kor’s eyes were unfocused and not tracking their slight movements, her mind clearly elsewhere. Mog, on the other hand, was crossing and uncrossing his arms while alternating from standing on his toes to being flat footed. Snek could smell his sweat as her tongue flicked out between her fangs, nearly coming into contact with Meaty’s snout. The rat flinched slightly and tried to pull his head further back and away from their mouth.
“We are the snake you raced against,” Snek responded.
Meaty’s eyes narrowed as he glanced down at their white scales and coil that was currently restricting his movement.
“Been working out?” he asked in response.
Snek noticed through her pit organs that Meaty’s internal temperature and heart rate hadn’t increased much since waking up, its pace even decreasing slightly. Was this situation not enough to frighten him? Apparently the rat had nerves of steel.
“More than you, apparently,” Blood scoffed, jumping into the conversation. Meaty’s eyes widened at the new voice, picking up on the change of pitch of cadence. This did cause the rat’s heart to race faster, and Snek had mixed feelings about finally getting under his skin.
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“We claimed you as our prize for winning the race, in lieu of the promised payment,” Snek said, in order to give the rat some bearing before continuing, “You no longer serve Jigz, but can he still control you?”
Meaty squeaked angrily at her words before responding, “You don’t own me, and neither did that old bastard.”
“The goblin laws say we do!” Blood interjected before Snek could respond, and she sent a pulse of frustration through their link. She turned towards its mental projection and glared, causing Blood to take a slither back and let her handle the conversation.
Meaty turned his head and spat at Blood’s comment, demonstrating his opinion of goblin laws. He did not respond.
Snek continued in his stead, “He never controlled you? Why were you following his instructions in the race, then?”
“I wasn’t. I competed and won the prizes,” Meaty said, his mental voice little more than a growl.
Snek idly wondered why Meaty didn’t talk like a goblin. He was lacking many of the errors that riddled the other goblins’ pattern of speech, and seemed to have a better handle on it than Kor - in spite of all the time she had spent trying to rid herself of the characteristic flaws of the goblin dialect. It shouldn’t be possible, especially because he couldn’t…
“Can you talk? Why don’t you speak like the goblins?” She asked abruptly.
Meaty shook his head briefly before responding, “I don’t know. Why don’t you?”
The implications of the rat’s response plowed into Snek, but she pushed them to the back of her mind for now, in favor of moving forward in the conversation.
“What about the other rats?” she asked.
Meaty glared at her for a moment, but eventually said, “Why should I tell you anything?”
“According to Jigz, you need to at least show us where the blue flowers are," Snek said, trying a new tactic, “You already tried to bite Kor - do you think it's a good idea for the goblin boss to think you slighted her after going through so much trouble to heal you?”
Meaty hesitated before responding, “Fine, but it's going to be dangerous. After that, I’m leaving.”
Snek found the rat’s attitude amusing, especially due to his current circumstances, so she decided to humor him, “Dangerous how, and what did you win in the races?”
“Muscle potions, and the other rats he sent to collect the flowers never came back.”
“Fine,” Snek returned. She could always eat the rat if he didn’t end up being useful, after getting more information out of him, of course. She would have to ask Kor about what these muscle potions were, in case he ended up proving himself useful.
Meaty nodded, before pushing against her coils and easily freeing himself from her grasp. He stood up, brushed himself off, and began lunging forward while flexing dramatically. She found the unsaid implication that he could have escaped her grasp at any time annoying, a feeling that was compounded when she looked up and saw Kor unsuccessfully trying to hide a smirk.
When she filled the goblin woman in, Kor had mixed reactions to Snek’s report of the conversation. She seemed particularly concerned when Snek mentioned the groups of rats not returning, but deflected Snek’s questions about the subject, saying she would fill her in on the way. When Snek brought up the ‘muscle potions’, however, Kor’s mouth dropped open.
“That potion is bad. If rat keeps drinking, rat cannot have children. Also causes red dots on skin. Also…” Kor held out her thumb and forefinger as if measuring an inch, then slowly brought her fingers closer together. She stared at Snek, who stared back before tilting her head to the side.
Kor didn’t explain further when she realized Snek did not understand what she was getting at. Instead, they both turned to look at Meaty - who had relocated atop Mog’s bicep. They were now comparing muscles.
“Let’s talk to rat about it after getting back,” the goblin woman whispered.
After some more deliberation, Kor had left the hut to check the status of the world outside their cavern. It was apparently night, so the small party had decided to get some rest before heading out. Initially, Kor had gone up to the loft alone to get some sleep, and Snek passively observed Meaty dig through the piles of Kor’s junk while investigating the large swath of shed skin.
It was interesting, but didn’t do much besides reinforce the idea that the experiences she had while being shunted through various vessels was more than just a vision. To Snek, it seemed like a lot of wasted energy, and she wondered what she could do differently next time to prevent that.
A random cracked and discarded gauntlet whipped past her head, and Snek turned to see what Meaty was up to. She quickly lost interest, however, when she saw what he had been searching for - weights. The large rat had been searching for heavy objects, and when he found enough, he began lifting them at different angles. Meaty had apparently decided to spend this time exercising.
The disruption to her investigation brought a wave of exhaustion to Snek’s mind, and she made her way up to Kor’s loft to turn in for the night. She coiled herself on the floor beneath Kor’s hammock, and briefly lamented the loss of her previous nest.
Kor shifted in her sleep, her movements pushing the brain jar briefly into Snek’s zone of awareness. Snek didn’t immediately understand what she had seen, and reared up slightly to investigate. For the first time, she saw the full shape of the creature that lay within the murky purple liquid.
The creature’s torso did appear to be some sort of mutated brain, but was unrecognizable beyond that point. She wasn’t a biological expert by any means, but Snek was fairly certain that brains didn’t have scaled legs that ended in talons, antennae, or tails.
Her thermal sense from her pit organs also confirmed something that she had been wondering about for some time: the creature was alive. It glowed a faint yellow, and suspended itself aloft within the jar with whip-like antennae that probed against the glass and kept it suspended in the center of the lightly swirling liquid.
Its legs were folded and pressed tightly against the many folds and wrinkles that adorned the brainy torso, its spine-like tail of segmented yet compressed vertebrates reached forward and wrapped around closed but vicious looking talons. It appeared to be in a state of unconsciousness but continued to make minute adjustments, adjusting itself slightly to press its tendrils towards the heat that emanated from Kor’s body.
Snek wondered what the strange creature was, how the goblins came into possession of such a strange creature, and why that passed it down from generation to generation. It looked like the brain of some poor creature had been pulled from their skull, and had then evolved to grow appendages and sensory capabilities.
She watched it with the unblinking eyes of her new vessel, studying the strangeness of its minute movements within the jar. It seemed… content?
Snek lowered herself back into her coil, the slight swing of Kor’s hammock eventually pushing the exhausted snake into a dreamless sleep.
Ecdysis:
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