My first sight was of a bright tan wall, curving around me in all directions. Speaking of me, I was somewhat surprised to find that I was lacking in a few areas, namely limbs. I spent a few minutes struggling to move, before I realized that I could easily do so by coiling around myself and swaying against the wall that encapsulated me. Upon close inspection, the wall, while flexible, seemed like it would break with just a little more pressure in any one direction. However, pressure was one of the many things I couldn’t quite accomplish yet.
After what seemed like hours, I finally managed to push against a part of the wall hard enough to crack it. Pushing against the crack eventually allowed me an opening, through which I swiftly escaped the egg, as I finally realized it was. Gazing at the ruptured egg, I was overcome with a sense of…. hunger.
After devouring the egg completely, I finally thought to look around me, and found that I was surrounded by eggs, and that a gigantic beast was currently staring at me, analyzing me, deciding whether or not I was worth eating.
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssssssss
Ability Gained: Serpent's Tongue (Basic)Allows rudimentary communication with, and basic understanding of, all manner of legless reptiles
Notice: Upgrade!Due to being a serpent, your Serpent's Tongue (basic) has been upgraded to Serpent's Tongue
Serpent's TongueAllows full communications with, and full understanding of, all legless reptiles of sufficient intellect
“-and, by that fucking vacant look you have, I’m assuming you’ve finally learned the language. Good. Now, as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me, I’m your mother. Yes, your mother. You and the other thirty eggs here are either my spawn, or orphans I’ve deigned to save from a quick, messy death. Oh, excuse me just a second.”
And then, I saw my mother, the queen of my den and arbiter of my life or death, attack for the first time. It was so quick that I could barely even see as she struck at an egg roughly equidistant from her and I, ripping the shell in two, and biting the head off of who I could only assume to be my brother, finishing his short life mere seconds after it started.
“Now, let me explain what you just saw. You just saw me cull a weakling from my den. I am the queen, and I refuse to allow weaklings to dilute my genes. That shitstain took over an hour to even begin breaking his shell. You, however, took a full twenty minutes: barely passable, not even close to something to brag about. But you were the first of your clutch, so I will allow you a few questions. You may begin.”
I gathered myself into a tight coil to try and shake the chill of my mortality being proven to me in no uncertain terms, and thought for a moment. Finally, I looked back up to my mons mother and spoke, trying not to shake too much as I did so.
“S-so, Mother, who am I? And what am I, and where are we, and are we alone, and what were those blue boxes, and -”
“Stop, stop, fucking stop! Shit, I should’ve known you’d be a chatterbox. You must be one of Pelsis’ brats. Well, congratulations, you’re destined to be a tiny fucker. Let’s hope your brothers hatch soon enough that one of the others is a successful father*. Now, you don’t have a name yet. you haven’t earned it. I, however, have, and it’s Teno, queen of the Anens Den. Which I believe also adequately tells you where we are, and if we’re alone. Now, for what we are, I am a Queen Python Serpent. You are simply a Serpent Hatchling. As for the boxes, they are called Information Screens. They are used by the gods to tell you information about your abilities and status. Just thinking of your status should bring up an Information Screen in your mind with all the relevant information, including your level, Attack, Defense, Agility, Intelligence, Wisdom, and any stats that you happen to gain as you live, like Ferocity, which is my personal favorite. I don’t know why those fuckers made the screens or why they chose to quantify our lives like this, but it’s the way it is. Anyway, you’ll stay a Serpent Hatchling until you hit level 100, at which point you’ll be given a few choices of what to evolve into, and fall asleep. You’ll wake up within 24 hours as whatever shit choice you made. Now, onto more important matters: your place in my den. You, unlike your brother, are not a shitstain. You are shit. You will remain shit until you can prove to me that you deserve a name, and a place in my den. You will do so by hunting and evolving into something. I’ll even be generous: you only have to hunt rats tomorrow, and you can choose what to evolve into, as long as you don’t get any ideas about challenging me. Don’t try to do something stupid like hunt today, either. You will die. Now get the fuck out of my sight”
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*(Many species of snakes are known to have females that collect sperm from multiple partners, and store them for fertilization at a later date. This is theorized to help produce stronger, more genetically diverse offspring, but nobody is quite sure.)
Surprised by my mother’s quick shifts of emotion, it took me a second to realize that she was sending me away from the only place I knew, and motioning towards a tunnel I hadn’t noticed until that moment. Slowly uncoiling, I slithered along the tunnel, trying to absorb the information that my mother has dumped on me. I quickly became lost in the tunnel, and decided to make my own opening in the wall to sleep in. I found a relatively soft spot in the dirt, and began to push against it, slowly burrowing in until I was completely inside the tunnel wall. Completely exhausted, I thought of my status for the first time.
NameNone (Shit)SpeciesSerpent HatchlingLevel1 (10 Experience per level) (Curse effect: 20 experience per level)Attack6Defense4Agility7Intelligence3Wisdom5AbilitiesSerpent's Tongue, Bite, Soul Devour (Passive)
“Wait, what? I can understand Bite, but what is Soul Devour? Inspect”
Soul Devour (Passive)By devouring a pure soul while still just a soul yourself, you have gained the ability to do so permanently. However, because you devoured the soul of a god's Champion, you have been cursed by that godEffectsGain 10% of all stats from any being you personally killCurseLothrak (Minor God of Education): For killing my Champion, I have decided to take half of all experience you will ever gain as my reparation. Have fun trying to survive, asshole
- 50% reduction in all experience gains
My last thought of the first day of my life was, “Well, fuck.”