Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Ding!

[SIDE QUEST COMPLETED: SUPPRESS THE CURSE]

Objective: Physical contact established with elite target. Reward Added: +1,000 EXP

[System Message: The curse has been temporarily suppressed. Nice work, fuckwit. You are now ready to evolve!]

Awesome. I’m actually doing this. I’m at 5,505 EXP, my very first evolution!

The keg is right there, sitting on its side on the flat rock above me, dark and dry and just big enough. I can see the hole from here. Perfect little cave. Private. Nobody’s going to bother a keg.

I start moving.

Slithering up the face of the rock takes longer than it should. I’m a red caterpillar-sized snake, and the surface is a rough sandstone, which is actually great for grip, but my head keeps getting ahead of my body in this embarrassing accordion situation that I refuse to acknowledge as struggling. It’s not struggling. It’s a dynamic movement.

I make it to the rim of the keg opening and coil just inside the dark mouth of it, scales cool against old wood, and the smell is ancient barley and something faintly metallic. Good enough.

So, evolution, huh?

[System: Yeah, nah, don’t stare at the wood. There’s nothing to see yet. System initiates when you’re ready.]

I’m ready. Obviously. I’ve been ready. I’m completely calm.

Am I still going to be a snake? I kind of like being a snake. I mean, it’s been a wild two days already.

[System: Wheel’s random, mate.]

What does that mean? Is the wheel random?

[System: Means what it means. Evolution branch spins. You get what you get.]

I sit with that for a second, coiling and uncoiling like a yo-yo.

Okay, but realistically. Statistically. I’m going to still be a snake, right? Like some kind of snake? A bigger snake, maybe a snake with a cool mutation, something snake-adjacent at minimum?

[System: Fuck do I know]

Aren’t you the god? Aren’t you meant to know?

[System: I didn’t fucking sign up, did I.]

Will I be human?

[System: Doubt it.]

That’s not reassuring; that’s just two words. Will I be human, yes or no?

[System: At rank F with your current achievement portfolio? Nah. Probably not. Humanoid routes are deep on the branch. You haven’t exactly been stacking credentials, have you?

I’ve been surviving.

[System: Barely.]

I killed things.

[System: you stole a kill and you technically killed a roach, real predator you are cunt.]

It was a big roach.

I flick my tongue, tasting the stale keg air, and try to think this through. The thing is, and I wasn’t expecting to feel this way, I actually like being a snake. I like the way I move. I like that I’m invisible when I want to be, that I can slip under doors and through gaps and nobody clocks me until it’s too late. I like the tongue. I like the venom developing in the glands behind my jaw, this slow, pressurised potential that hums faintly when I get close to something worth biting.

I don’t want to lose that.

I genuinely like being a snake. Just putting that on record.

[System: Noted, I heard you the first time. Very touching.]

So if the wheel is random, what are we actually spinning on? What are the actual options?

[System: Blind box, mate. Rank F pool. Which, given that’s where you’re sitting, means the selection is probably going to reflect your current standing in the grand scheme of things.]

Which is.

[System: Middling. Unproven. Basically a novelty item.]

You’re saying I’m going to get a shit roll.

[System: I’m saying the pool you’re drawing from isn’t exactly premium stock. You haven’t unlocked anything special. You haven’t done anything that’d weigh the wheel. You’ve been a small red snake in a sewer for well over two days?]

So I could roll something useless.

[System: You could roll something fine. Fine is the word I’d use. Probably fine.]

Probably fine is worse than could be.

[System: Is it though.]

Okay. Okay, I’m doing this. What do I actually have to do? Do I just think about it? Say something? Is there a button?

[System: There’s a prompt incoming. When it pops, you confirm. That’s it.]

That’s it.

[That’s it.]

And then the wheel spins.

[System: And then the wheel spins.]

And whatever comes up...

[System: You get what you get, mate. Stop stalling, you little fucker.]

I’m not stalling. I’m processing. There’s a difference, and I refuse to examine it too closely right now because the prompt is already appearing at the edge of my vision.

[EVOLUTION THRESHOLD REACHED — 5,505 / 5,000 EXP]

[Confirm evolution? Y / N]

My tongue flicks out once.

Yeah.

[System: HAHA YOU ACTUALLY TRIED TO PRESS IT? You can’t press shit. Remember, you don’t have hands, you idiot. I do it, that’s my job.]

[System: hahaha oh my god. Oh, that’s good. That’s genuinely the funniest thing you’ve done yet, and you’ve been doing bits this whole time. mate. MATE. You tried to click a UI element. With your face. You are a belt with eyes.]

I didn’t try to click it with my face.

[System: you lunged forward like you were going to headbutt the confirm button. You are a weaponised noodle and made entirely of anxiety. beautiful. I’m spinning it now, you absolute dumbass.]

The keg goes dark in a way that has nothing to do with light. It’s like the inside of my skull goes quiet all at once, the barley smell dropping out, the faint drip of distant sewer water cutting off mid-drip, and then there’s this sensation I don’t have a word for yet, a kind of interior spinning, like my own blood is a wheel and something is flicking it, like a stupid fidget spinner.

Then three windows crack open in my vision like someone kicking in three doors at once.

[System: Alright. Here we go, ya little freak. Three options. All solid choices, genuinely. I mean that. Don’t make a face.]

I don’t have a face to make.

[System: You’ll find a way. Read ’em.]

EVOLUTION OPTION 1: