A Snake's Life

by Kenneth Arant

  The Elemental Wyrm is one such inhabitant. Lena confessed to only ever seeing a fire Wyrm, and not its fully elemental variant. But, she said, the Wyrm was an incredibly dangerous creature while in its element. However, outside of it, they were severely weakened. How this would affect an elemental Wyrm, I didn't know, but I also didn't want to take the chance of being weakened simply because I wasn't in my "element.” So, I passed it up as well.

  Which left only two choices... Well, three if you count the hydra, but as I didn't want to wait that long, I didn't count it among my possible evolutions... for now, anyway. That would likely change if it became a necessary path for me to take, but for the moment, I was happy with my current choices. Now, if I could only make up my mind.

  AFTER REACHING THE base of the island and spending the next two days digging as fast as we could, we made it to the city on the island. More specifically, we emerged into one of the gardens that dotted the cityscape, then we turned and headed back to the tunnel to prepare for the final part of our journey.

  Fenris and I gathered the others together and came up with a plan. We needed a way to get from the garden to the branch without the mind-altering effects of the island taking hold of us, and the only thing Fenris and Lena could agree on was that the children shouldn't walk on their own. After all, we didn't want something to happen to them while we were distracted by the island.

  So, after about half an hour of listening to them arguing, I suggested they all climb on my back and I’d carry them there. And because they didn't have any better ideas, that is what we went with. The five of them would climb on my back after exiting the tunnel, and I would carry them to the branch. Hopefully, we’d make it there before whatever it is this island does could take effect.

  We were just getting ready to put our plan into action when Lena suddenly yelled, "Wait!"

  We stopped just before entering the tunnel, then turned to look at her.

  "We should take as much of the food from the gardens as we can. There's no telling how long it'll be before we can get home, so we'll need as much food as we can carry." She said this with a slight shrug of her shoulders. Fenris and I looked at each other, then back to Lena.

  "Can we empty out an entire garden in a few minutes?" Fenris asked while looking up at me.

  "It's certainly possible. If the two of you can snatch up a few plants while we move, I think that would be a better solution than just grabbing the food."

  Fenris turned back to Lena. "Do you think you could uproot some of them, while we move?"

  Lena gave us a confident nod and allowed a grin to appear. "Of course. Who do you think you're talking to?"

  I nodded my head. "Alright, then we need something to put the plants in." I paused for a few seconds, then said, "Think you could make some containers out of the ship?"

  She tilted her head to the right and folded her arms across her chest. "Sure, I could... But what are we going to do with the rest of the ship? Are we going to just leave it there?"

  I shook my head. "No, I was going to smash it, once it was no longer needed."

  Lena's eyes went wide. "What, why!?"

  I shrugged. "One of my evolutions requires me to smash five ships. I figured it wouldn't hurt to start with yours since if all goes well, you won't need it anymore."

  Lena looked from me to Fenris and quietly said, "But... but we've had so many good memories on that ship..."

  Fenris shifted into his Demi-Elvan form, then walked over and wrapped his arms around her. The two of them stood there whispering back and forth for several minutes before Lena nodded and Fenris took a step away, then shifted back. He looked to me, then said, "Give us a few minutes, okay?"

  I nodded my head, then left the family to their own devices as I made my way up the tunnel. I stopped just before the island's base, then I decided to lay my head down and wait for the family to catch up. A few minutes passed before I heard someone walking in my direction, so I turned my head slightly to see who it was and saw Hali standing there. She waved at me with a smile on her face, then walked over and leaned against my side.

  Neither of us said a word while we were waiting. Though at some point she grew bored and decided to quietly hum a song. I watched her for a few seconds, then turned my back to the stone path ahead.

  I let out a small sigh. "Fenris should have kept his mouth shut. I can't even look at the girl without remembering his words now."

  She looked up at me and smiled, then went back to humming her song. Awhile later, the rest of the family showed up carrying wooden crates and several large pieces of cloth. They walked over to us, and though Fenris looked at me suspiciously, he didn't say anything.

  "Is everyone ready?" Lena asked.

  I lifted my head off the ground and nodded, then I began moving through the stone tunnel to the island's surface. A few more minutes passed before I left the tunnel and circled around to the back of the hole. The family exited not long after I did, then they climbed on my back and I began to move around the city.

  I traveled from garden to garden on my way to the branch, but I decided to try out something before I got too far from the ship. I made my way over to the edge, then leaned my head over and aimed the jewel at the ship below.

  "Are you done with the ship now?" I asked.

  I didn't hear anything for several seconds. Then Lena said, "Yes... We're done with it."

  I nodded my head and took aim at the ship. "Let's see if this works..." I'd tried to do this before, and though it did work, it had barely left a scratch on the Titan. So, I was eager to see what it could actually do.

  "Hey, uh... what're you doi—" Fenris began to ask before I cut him off.

  I transferred a small amount of energy from the Titan meat I'd eaten into the jewel on my forehead... Then, "Please... don't give me another concussion," I expelled the energy from the jewel, causing a beam of condensed power to fly from it. The energy traveled down to the ship below and crushed the back half of the ship into splinters.

  While this impressed the family, as they'd never seen the energy used in such a way, I was growing frustrated because not only did it give me a massive headache and crack a few scales, but I’d also missed my target. I'd been aiming for the very front of the ship, but the shot went far left and hit the back.

  "Since when could you do that!?" Fenris yelled, and his voice seemed to echo in my now aching head.

  I lifted myself back onto the island, then began moving again. "How do you think I killed the Leviathan?"

  "I didn't think you did that!" he barked at me, then turned to face Lena. "Stupid snake... First, the bastard grew larger than me, and now he can fire fucking beams out of his head,” I heard him mumble to her, causing her to giggle into her hand.

  A HALF HOUR LATER, we arrived at the base of the branch. The family hopped off, and Fenris shifted into his Demi-Elvan form before making contact with the ground. Then, they turned to face me.

  "Well... this is it, I suppose," Lena said after a few seconds.

  I nodded my head, then said, "It is. Remember your promise to me, Fenris. I get you here, and you help me evolve."

  "I remember, snake. Do you still want me to help you with that evolution?" he asked.

  "Yes, collecting the stones will be next to impossible for me, due to my size, and well everything else. So, if you wouldn't mind collecting them for me. I'd appreciate it," I said with a slight nod.

  "After everything you've done for us consider it done."

  Lena stepped forward and gave me a kiss on the "cheek,” then Hali quickly copied her. And Solon, who was standing at the back, just nodded to me and smiled. Talia, who was in Lena's arms, waved at me and giggled.

  Then they walked over to the branch. Fenris lifted Hali and Solon into his arms, while Lena used her magic to stick the gathered plants onto his back.

  "Remember, snake. The druid home world is Planet Uathea, so if you want your stone, you’ll have to come visit us there." Then he reached out and touched the bra
nch, and he and his family were sucked inside, leaving me alone on the island.

  I touched my head to the branch shortly after they disappeared and was sucked inside, as well.

  AFTER BEING SUCKED inside the branch, I found myself inside the Bifrost once again and several pop-ups were floating in front of me.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  Welcome to the Bifrost

  Please select your next destination from the available branches.

  Geoter: A desert planet.

  Neonia: Home of several human kingdoms. Equal parts water and earth.

  Thaater: A fire elemental world. Home to several hundred active volcanos and flame guardians.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "Hmm... The desert is out immediately." The desert planet was removed from the list.

  "And, I'm not ready for the human kingdoms just yet. So, I guess Thaater it is." The pop-up disappeared and I was propelled forward at high speeds.

  Chapter 24

  WHEN I WAS FINALLY pushed out in the new world, the very first thing I realized was just how different the worlds could be from one another. If the first world was an evergreen forest of darkness, and the second was essentially an ocean, this planet was the embodiment of earth and fire. I stared out at the surrounding area for several minutes, just trying to take it all in before I dared to move.

  It was currently nighttime here, so the moon was out in all its glory. The large, blood red moon cast an ominous shadow on everything that touched its light. The stars appeared to be hidden behind a ceiling of fog, as they couldn't yet be seen.

  I slowly moved my eyes down and took in the mountains in the distance. They all seemed to glow in a bright red light as if they each had a miniature sun contained within. I could see veins of magma flowing down each of them in a constant stream of red, and pitch-black smoke rose from their open mouths. The mountains were huge, even from where I was "standing,” and I was most likely several hundred miles away.

  I slowly rotated my head to get a good look of the area around the branch, but a few seconds later, something incredibly hot dripped onto my back. I hissed in pain and moved my massive body away from the branch, then I rolled onto my back and thrashed around until the pain stopped.

  I looked up into the sky behind the branch and saw what had dripped on me. A river of lava flowed in a spiral around the top of the branch, but they never touched. The lava spun lazily through the air, on its way to wherever it went. The bright red and orange colors created a pain in the back of my skull, just by looking at it. I "turned off” my heat sensing and a few seconds later, the pain faded away.

  "I should probably stick to my normal vision and keep my heat sensing off for the duration of my stay here." After ensuring that I was out from under the lava, I returned to studying my surroundings.

  I appeared to be on some form of large hill or small mountain. Now that I was actively focusing on the ground beneath me, I could feel the heat seeping up through the dirt and stone. I looked around for a few more minutes, but as I didn't see anything new, I decided to finally begin moving.

  I slowly made my way down the hill and onto flat ground. Then I took another quick look around before picking a direction.

  "The Wyrm evolution requires me to completely submerge myself in a 'river of fire'. Assuming that means a magma river, I should probably head for one of the mountains in the distance. But, then what? I can't submerge myself inside a magma river without being roasted alive, so I first need to come up with a way around that."

  Now that I was alone again, I didn't need to constantly worry about keeping my stomach full, lest I suddenly decide the family looked appetizing. However, that also meant I no longer had access to Lena's magic. Which, now that I thought about it, probably could have helped me here.

  But, as wishing for something to happen never worked, I resolved myself to experiencing some pain while I was here. After all, it wasn't like the answer to my problems would just fall out of the sky. Yeah, no way that was going to happen. So, it looked like I was going to need to do this the old-fashioned way—through stubborn determination and a conceivably good plan.

  I decided to head in the direction of the closest mountain and come up with a strategy along the way. I couldn't do anything until I had some lava to experiment with, after all.

  After what felt like hours of moving along the ground, I came to the edge of a plateau that was miles above the land beneath it, and when I looked down, I got my first good look at a Flame Guardian, or what I suspected to be one.

  It was a colossal tortoise that appeared to be swimming through the earth. Its head was just above the surface layer of dirt, but on its back were three mountains that constantly spewed smog into the air. The beast had to be at least five miles long and three miles tall. It used its massive limbs to tear apart the earth beneath it and move through it as if it were water. I watched it for several minutes, as it moved through the earth in giant, slow strides. Then, something inside me came up with a horrible thought.

  "I wonder how it tastes?" I tilted my head to one side. A phantom smile spread across my face as my wings unfurled. This would be the first time in a while that I actually stretched them, as I normally kept them wrapped around me, like a second layer of scales. A neat trick, which honestly took me longer to come up with than it should have.

  During my time tunneling through the Titan, I'd often climb to the highest point and glide down to the water below. This was always entertaining to the kids, as they'd frequently ask me to fly them around for a while. Though it always annoyed me that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't gain any height with my wings. Not by flapping them, anyway.

  I lifted my head as high as I could, then allowed myself to fall over the edge. I quickly fell towards the rocky ground below and my body tensed up in excitement. Then, just before I hit the ground, I spread out my wings and caught air on the thin membrane and began gliding. My upper wingspan was around a thousand feet, while the lower wingspan was about five hundred feet.

  I sailed through the air until I felt myself about to lose speed, then I closed my wings and allowed myself to fall again. Once again, I waited until I was about to hit the ground before opening my wings and gliding with renewed momentum.

  I repeated this action until I was over the tortoise's back, then I finally allowed myself to touch down on one of the mountains it carried.

  After landing on the tortoise's mountain shell, I began looking around for some exposed flesh that I could try digging into. I looked around for several minutes, but the only thing I could find was stone and more stone. So, I did what any sensible snake with a portable laser on his head would do.

  "Let's try starting out at a lower output, then slowly increasing it until it's capable of penetrating the stone." I aimed the jewel at a stone outcropping about twenty feet away, and I transferred the smallest amount of energy I could into it. The jewel slowly began to emit a bright red light and when I released the energy inside, instead of allowing it to explode out all at once, I held most of it back and only let the barest trickle of energy leave. The energy came out as a faint red line, that slowly increased in size the more energy I pushed into it.

  After a few seconds of continuously adding more energy into the mix, I considered my experiment a success. The output of energy was now equal to the amount I'd used to destroy the ship, but I wasn't feeling the same effects as before. I was still feeling the pressure on my skull and my head was hurting, but it was a bearable pain. I could most likely keep this up until I either ran out of energy or grew too hungry to continue. The latter was the most likely occurrence, as even now I was suddenly feeling the gnawing hunger that I'd been able to ignore for so long.

  "Damn! If I don't get some food soon, I'm going to have to eat rocks again..." I pouted, then increased the beam’s output until It finally began to cut through the stone.

  I kept the beam going for what felt like hours to my stomach, though it was probably only about ten minutes. It was wort
h it in the end, as the beam had carved its way deep into the stone, exposing the flesh beneath. A phantom smile spread across my face.

  "Jackpot!" I reactivated the beam and began using it to cut out a hole large enough for me to fit inside, though that took me another hour of using my precious energy. Once I'd done it, I was so happy being able to get to the meat, that I no longer cared. Because the stone was essentially turned to slag, I could ignore it and head straight for the meat, which is what I did.

  I slid down the one-hundred and sixty-foot-wide, and two-hundred-foot-deep hole that I'd made, then I quickly dug into my prize. I bit into the flesh of the creature and tore out a chuck larger than Fenris.... It was the most delicious thing I'd tasted since I'd first started eating the Titan. I very quickly tore out another piece, then another, and another. This cycle continued for over an hour and once I'd eaten to the point of bursting, I took a look around and noticed that I'd eaten a fifty-foot hole into the creature's back.

  "... I haven't heard the creature react to it being eaten... Does it not feel pain?" I silently wondered.

  If it didn't even notice that I'd dug a hole into its back... How tough was this creature, exactly? Never mind the fact that I'd spent an hour carving away bits of its shell, eating a hole into its flesh should've gotten its attention. But I wasn't going to turn away a mostly free meal. I decided not to complain and enjoy it while I could.

  A few hours later, and after taking a quick nap, I received this pop-up.

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  You have eaten the following race for the first time.

  Magma Elemental Tortoise: Tier 8

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  "A Magma Elemental Tortoise... huh?"

  I left the hole I'd dug and proceeded to explore my new temporary '"home.” I first headed to the top of the mountains on the creature's back. Using my newly acquired energy, I carved a path down into the mouth of the mountain, then began to explore. Inside, I found molten pits of magma, and caves lined with metal.