Opening the iron clad door, as he entered into a world of color and noise. Smoke filled his nostrils as the sound instruments drowned out the act of thinking. Already playing a note he sent the first platoon of rats into the building.

Walking like nothing had happened, yet, so he strolled his way over to the receptionist desk and asked where exactly he could find Caley.

“Douwn the whall and to take two lefts, can’t miss it. Anything else I can help you with.” The tired receptionist replied, not even looking up from her book.

“Yes you can. I was wondering if I could set up a search person’s thing?”

“That will be eight gold and a drop of your blood, please.” Digging though his small bag of coins he withdrew the needed price and niked himself on the small knife provided. Letting a drop of blood drip onto the extended piece of paper.

Following the directions given to him he found his way to a door with a little plaque with the words ‘Caley’s catch and release program Room 119’. Knocking on the door, he found it to be open.

Letting himself in he found a slender woman looming over a map, presumably the map of this continent. With The kingdom of Ardania at its center along with a small gray blob not a few fingertips away. As the door creaked open the person hopefully Caley finally took notice.

“Ah, who are you and why have you come here? No one ever bothers me. Especially at this hour.” She said, already rolling up the map.

“I’m Marlow, a tamer. I was told you could sell me some ‘special animals’ I’m willing to pay or trade if you're interested.”

“Oh really, oh exactly sent you here youngen.”

“Benson actually, he said they could give me a better chance outside of the kingdom.”

“Benson, that old geezer, well tell him we’re even then. Come on, follow me, I'll take ya there.”

Caley seemed to visibly relax and she reached under her desk. An audible click could be heard as a nearby book swung on its hinges opening up a dark staircase leading down.

“Lock the door, would ja. We wouldn’t want any of these beastys getting out now would we.”

Clicking the door shut he hurriedly walked to keep up with the agile woman in front of him.

“Ordinarily it would take a few weeks before I’d let anyone down here, but with the zoo closing down and the kingdom launching investigations left and right. I would prefer you sign a contract before we go any further.” Caley said, stopping at a little outlet with a piece of paper laid out on the old table.

“It basically says ‘If you snitch on me to the kingdom all the beasts I sold you come back to me for free and you’ll lose your memory of this place. In Exchange for a proper pass to my underground market.’ Does that sound fair to you?”

“I guess since you're the only person I know who has this sort of deal going.” He attempted a joke only to get a firm look in return.

“So is there like a quill for was I supposed to bring my- AUGH'' Marlow screamed. When he leant over the small table to look for a quill. A quill had appeared in mid air bobbing up and down. Waiting for him to grab it. Attempting to compose himself he hurriedly graded his quill and wrote his name on the new parchment. As soon as he was done the quill disappeared.

“Lovely, now that’s business is done like shopping.”

Caley leaned back against a banner rather than heading down the obvious set of stairs and fell through the banner. Following her lead he walked right over, turned around and landed on his back.

“You do know that was unnecessary right?”

“No, I did not.”

“Oh well. Welcome to my market! Sorry I haven’t come up with a good name yet, you're actually my first genuine customer. Other than all the jesters and what not.”

“What would jesters be doing here?”

“They were employees of the zoos.”

“Why would a zoo employ jesters?”

“That’s a long story, anyway you're here for a new pet? Monster? Companion? What exactly are you looking for?”

“Oh yes I’m looking for some sort of flying beast that I can ride or one that has a large carrying capacity for long trips. I got a few mounts but they're a bit slower than what I expected.”

“Well I'm just letting you know right now you're gonna have to train them from the ground up, since these are wild beasts. To answer your question we got a hippogriff, pterodactyl, an owl bear, but that doesn’t really fly, and a pegasus.”

“Pterodactyl?”

“Well a pterodactyl is from the drake family. With its wings attached to its front arms rather than having them on it’s back.”

“How much would it cost?”

“For you four thousand gold.” The sound of an invisible gut punch was thankfully drowned out by the racks made by having so many animals and monsters locked away. Sure it would be cool to ride a dino around but that was far out of Marlow price range.

“Do you have anything for a person with a budget of less than a thousand gold perhaps?”

“Maybe. We got a few crystal crabs and a dozen specialized bashers. I do have a unique snake, but I haven’t been able to categorize or really dig into it yet.”

“What's a crystal carb? Wait no, I guess it's a big card with crystal carapace?”

“Spot on. They're gonna cost about, let's say eight hundred per crab.”

“I don’t think I have enough coins. For what I want.”

“Well what are you planning on doing?”

“I’m planning on infultading a guild’s base and need a distraction to sneak past the guards and well everyone else for that matter.”

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“Oh already going after guilds are we, which one?”

“The Hardcores, they sort of stole one of my creatures. A chicken to be exact.”

“I don’t think you could afford anything here. I’m sorry kid but you're on your own for that.”

“How much for the weird snake?”

“Twenty gold, no refund.”

“...Deal.”

Caley reached out and grabbed Marlow's stretched bag of gold. Turning and began walking towards a large cage with a torn tarp loosely draped around it. Following her lead he jogged up to her, stopping when she stopped at a crudely made white line a few feet away from the cage.

Piercing through the torn fabric he saw a deep cobalt scaled snake wrapped around a pile of potatoes. It was sleeping comfortably on the scratched up cage floor. Turning he saw Caley undoing a key from her ring before grabbing his hand and plopping it into his hand.

“You two have fun now. I’ll see myself out.”

Turning back he let himself into the oddly still cage, closing the mesh door behind him. He would want his new purchase to get away, now would he. Turning back the familiar blue scales was gonna. The poor thing was probably hiding... under the sack of… Potatoes.

The potato sack was actually another snake on top of the blue snake. Crouching down to apperless threatening he pulled out his bag of nearendless treats. Mentally checking it he saw that it was nearly full.

Reaching inside he pulls out a small slimy egg. Instantly the brown snake leapt at him. Raising his arms to cover his face the egg slipped and fell. The glimmering glossy egg dropped directly into the wait maw of the brown snake. Freezing the snake flicked it’s tongue once at the terrified human.

Lowering his arms he reaches back and into his bag and pulls out another gooey egg and this time holding his hand palm open. The brown snake Responded by slithering backwards. Confused, he took one small step forward. Just then the blue snake lunged forward tackling him, knocking him over.

Rolling he felt the cold body of the snake cover him. It’s body grew in size as Marlow’s vision blurred as blue and brown scales crossed each other. He might have begun to suffact if the body of the snake hadn’t slid right off of him. Each gigantic snake took up sides on opposite sides of the enclosed cage.

Turning about to try and track the scales he followed one head down its body continuing on and on until its scales began to mesh with the other snake. Continuing to follow the scales up to the other end of the body where it’s tail should be, but instead found the head of the brown snake.

“You're a two headed snake!” Staring into the eyes of the brown snake some information began to appear.

Perception auto success, due to owning said creature! Wild, Double Headed Snake, uncommon (Level 8). As like any other snake they are naturally predisposed to laying out in the sun waiting for something to happen. However this unique specimen has had recent trouble with a biomancer causing it to gain two new abilities.

Ongoing Effects: Dual Heads. Size change.

Patting at his belt he found his bag and dumped it out. Thousands of little slimy eggs poured out bouncing on the cold steel floor. The snakes, snakes? Attacked it with only a moment's hesitation.

Wild, Double Headed Snake has eaten enough taming treats and has moved to tame rank Confused. They are now 25% less likely to attack you if they come in range!

Confused, Double Headed Snake has eaten enough taming treats and has moved to tame rank Timid. They are now 35% less likely to attack you if they come in range!

Timid, Double Headed Snake has eaten enough taming treats and has moved to tame rank Placid. They are now 45% less likely to attack you if they come in range!

Double Headed Snake may now be claimed by player ‘Marlow’ Please choose or write a name for Double Headed Snake.

Wow did he double tame rank when eating it? If so, getting this beast to the fully tame rank would be so easy! Then again didn’t Benson say you have to form a special connection with a creature before then? Oh well it’s not like it can just blitz through the ranks fast then it could right now could it?

Oh right, the name! What is he going to call this magnificent creature? Something to strike terror in the hardcores. Oh! What about Terror! No, that was too basic. Pondering Marlow entered a name in testing to see if it would work, it did.

Processing… Name unclaim… Accepting name… Name accepted!

Name: Cob n Tato

Class: Constrictor

Hit Points: 300

Character Level: 8

Mana: Locked

Mana reg: Locked

Stamina: 590/590

Strength: 53

Dexterity: 75

Constitution: 25

Intelligence: 22

Wisdom: 37

Charisma: 50

Perception: 84

Luck: 26

Smiling, he pulled out his flute and began to train his new creature. Hours seemed to pass by at Marlow walk Cob n Tato through some basic tricks. Suck as follow me, be still, and fetch. However when Marlow tried to teach Cob n Tato to hind, he made the realization that there was no place to hind.

Not wanting to walk out on his moment of peace with his new friend he began to teach Cob n Tato to shrink and grow when he played cerita melodies. It took over two hour but finally they had a working tune for Cob n Tato to grow and shrink with. The hard part was teaching it that if he played the tune a second time he wanted it to shrink and not grow even bigger. That had been a fun little accident which then became its own song.

Looking around he realised he himself could hind Cob n Tato, so another hour passed as Marlow taught his snake that it was okay to constrict around him. And after all the Master was all nice and warm and It wasn’t like he was using that heat for anything special.

Marlow had finally gotten comfortable with a slithering snake around his gut. Deciding to show off his new priced pet he wanders off to rejoin the world above. How long had he been down here?

Climbing up the twisting staircase had come down early, he eventually found himself at a ladder leading up to a sewer grate letting himself out he found himself in a new part of the city looking back down from where he came he only found a plain running stream of water.

“You sneaky monster dealer.”

Feeling his shift about Marlow decided it was time to invest in a little armor, since it would look a bit odd for a person’s shirt to be wiggling about in their body.

Hours later after getting thoroughly lost he finally asked someone for directions to the north east gates. Another hour passed by as Marlow hustled by trying to get a more familiar part of town. It was dark as Marlow finally twisted the knob to the room that his party had been renting.

“Oh hey Marlow, about time you made it, back got everything you needed?”

“I just-”

“Wonderfully cause we have had a change in plans!” Le0n bombarded Marlow, jestering from him to close the door.

“Word on the street says that the Hardcores have gone underground, literally. So that probably means they have been killing off most of the sewer monsters down there. Which means the city doesn’t have to put out as many sewer themed quests which sort of gives them a major boon when they don’t want to be found! On the other hand that does mean only the extremely curious, wh-what is in your shirt?”

Marlow, having not found a smithy, just kept on adjusting his shirt whenever Cob n Tato slithered about. Now finally being in a comfortable place had dropped the act and had relaxed, forgetting to tell his friends about his newest pet. Lifting up his shirt he said.

“Oh this is Cob n Tato, Cob n Tato meet Le0n and Jazz!” This was met with both delight and disgust. Jazz moved forward and began stroking Cob’s sleepy head cooing over the fact that something so dangerous could be so gentle. Le0n of course crawled backwards putting as much space as possible between him and Tato’s steely gaze.

“Marlow! Put that thing back where it came from or so help me!” Le0n shouted, flailing one arm out while pointing a callused finger back at Tato. Finally grabbing a hold of Gwaner’s tail and flinging the formally sleepy rat that serpent.

Reaching out an arm, Gwaner landed then climbed away from Tato’s wide open jaw. Tato tried slithering after the flung food, but a stern look from the Master told him that doing so would be very unwise to eat the large rat.

“I take it you're not a fan of snakes?”

“Of course I’m not a fan of snakes there, sneaky, poisonous, dangerous, slimy, vile creatures!”

“Well I guess it's good we have a sneaky, venomous, dangerous, slimy, vile creature on our side then!”