Tuesday, April 30th, 2069
“What the husk, Smegma?” I shouted. I angled my head to glare at the rest of the group. “Why are you all helping him and the Snake?”
I felt most of the hands holding me down slacken slightly, but the weight of three men and a woman was still a bit too much for me to struggle out from. Not specifically because of a lack of Strength. But the weight was shifting, and spread unevenly.
That didn’t stop me from trying, though, and eventually the group redoubled their holds when I started to squeeze free. “Stop, Brodie,” my dad pleaded. “Even if we die here, isn’t it better that someone lives?”
“But we could all live if Smegma hadn’t betrayed us!” I shouted, and glared at the Demon. Smegma’s face confused me. Was he… hurt? The others looked at him too and I could feel their confusion at the situation as well.
“Remember that talk about trust?” Smegma whispered, his voice definitely conveying pain. Those words made my heart pang in my chest, like a reverberating string of a guitar. My emotions and the situation told me he was betraying my desires, and I had thought it was because he’d rather not die himself. However, my brain was telling me something else entirely.
I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I should have trusted him. Why I should have done those things were total guesses, but I could recall the Demon’s small smile when the Snake put its foot on the proverbial scale of this task.
My breath stuttered in as I fought my assumptions back—trying to calm my body and feelings of betrayal that seemed to be far stronger and resistant to my attempts than they should be. Finally, I did manage to get enough control to say, “What do you mean, Smegma? Aren’t you stopping me so we—no, you can live?”
Smegma blinked, even as he gained an introspective look. Then he chuckled. “Well yes, there is part of that in this decision I suppose. But if you had just kept trying to Fish, we could have bent this stupid Snake over Hellhound Style!”
The air around the lake had always been cold, but after Smegma’s words it became arctic. Three eyes shone in the darkness of the deeper water, and they carried nothing but malice. The entire lake reverberated like a tuning fork as a loud threatening bellow sounded out.
“It’sss time for you all to die,” the Great Snake of Nagsynd hissed. Then it struck. I’d never been able to see it move before, but this time, it must have deliberately struck in slow motion so I—no, so we could see our demise coming.
A gong sounded out, canceling out the bellow, but I was too busy pissing myself to notice. A few other warm spots appeared on my body, as my group, currently atop me—also lost control of their bowels.
I didn’t even blame them.
“What isss thisss?” The Snake exclaimed, sounding like it had food in its snake mouth.
Its exclamation startled me enough to make a realization. I could see the ‘strike’ because it wasn’t moving closer. Three more gongs, at a much reduced volume, sounded out when the massive serpent pulled back and pushed forward to try and close. But it was like it was being stopped by a wall of air.
Each time that ‘wall’ stopped it, a gong sounded. The first one must have been the loudest because he had been striking at full speed.
“This is what you get for giving out a task, signing a contract and trying to cheat!” Smegma crowed. The Demon didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder at the Snake, instead, regarding the group—no, regarding me with a smug, ‘I told you so,’ smile.
I grimaced, realizing that the Demon and I weren’t finished with the ‘trust talk’, but he was going to put it on simmer, while he dealt with this. Still, I nodded to convey something of an apology. Obviously it was easy to say I should have trusted Smegma, given the current situation…
But it was infinitely harder in the moment to have done so, when I thought he was ruining the chance of my friends and family surviving to save his summoner. It felt like a flimsy excuse even as I thought it. Smegma’s smile grew, and I knew he was listening to my thoughts. Still why in the hell hadn’t he just mentally told me, any of this?
[Cause you're a piss poor actor. Remember when I lied about the Mana Battery, and you couldn’t even look up? You would’ve given it away. Then the Snake could have come up with a different way to tilt the scales. Plus, we’ve never figured out if it can husking hear us!] I met Smegma’s eyes, and let a small acknowledging smile come onto my face. He was right—my acting Skills weren’t even up to SwiftGrammer standards.
“So, Great Slithered,” Smegma said, as he turned around. “You thought you could cheat a System-signed contract and get away with it?”
“There isss nothing in the contract that forbidsss my intervention!” The Snake complained, even as it sounded the air wall gong again in frustration. “I cheated nothing!”
“Ahh, you must come from a time before the System adopted Implied Terms,” Smegma continued to gloat, likely being intentionally vague. A low menacing bellow sounded again, but this time Smegma laughed. “There is nothing you can do, you stupid overlarge noodle. In fact, when the Portal closes, I think you might gain a bit more of the System’s scrutiny than you wanted.”
“What? Sssurely you jessst. The Sssyssstem caresss little about the weak!”
“What System do you speak of? How long have you been on this planet preparing for Ascension Stupid-Snake?”
“What doesss that have to do withsss anything? The ssstronger I am, the better chance I’ll have to defeat the invadersss and Ascend! How is that ssstupid?”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Smegma tilted his head, blinked and then looked back at me with wide eyes. No, he wasn’t looking at me, I realized. He was looking at us, as a whole. Why became evident in a moment when he stated, “You are going to be an opponent for the Seven Deadly Trials!”
“Of course,” the Snake said, while tilting his head. “Wait—are you not aware of thisss?”
Smegma began tapping a talon to tooth, clearly contemplating what this meant. Before he could get too engrossed in a scientific hypothesis, I shouted, “What is the System doing, and why do you think the Snake is husked?”
“Husssked?” The Snake asked, clearly unfamiliar with the term. “I’ve ssshed recently, though?”
Thankfully my interruption did startle Smegma enough that he stopped making his ‘thinking’ face, and pointed at the wall. “The System has deemed there has been a break in the Contract. The Snake gave us a task, and signed a contract, but then intentionally, and personally attempted to prevent us from fulfilling its request. It’s something like your world’s insider trading. Or maybe more similar to Game Fixing?”
The wet spots on my clothing suddenly became gross and uncomfortable, as I shook the others off of me. They didn’t struggle and so I was able to push myself up, and then slowly stand, as I considered the Demon’s implication. The System had deemed the Snake to have cheated and fixed the results so it could get what it wanted!
“So, we’re going to live?” Dave asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Smegma huffed out a breath, in clear amusement. “Yes, dumb—“
The cheering of the group cut him off. It took me a second, but then I joined them. We hugged, no one even commented on feeling uncomfortable from the stains in their crotch regions.
They were going to live—and I wasn’t going to be a slave!
The merriment cut off rather abruptly as the Snake shouted, “You will explain what you meant about the Sssyssstem!”
Smegma gave the Snake a look he usually reserved for me, when he thought I was being particularly dense. “I have no obligation to tell you anything, reptile!”
“A trade then?” The Snake offered, after it bellowed again in frustrated anger. “I will tell you what I know about the Assscension Trialsss, if you tell me about what you meant about the Sssyssstem!”
“You first, I’m not about to trust someone who just cheated.”
To my surprise and everyone else’s, if the gasps from beside me were telling, the Snake nodded its head. “Asss you wisssh. Two Dragonsss came out of the Portal, on Nagsssin. They claimed to be children of the one who Assscended when she defeated the Naga Contendersss.”
“So, they too faced a Dragon?” Smegma whispered.
“Yesss, sssuposssedly it isss very common to find Dragonsss in the Trialsss. They told me why on their deathhhbedsss.”
The Snake paused for a moment, tried the air wall one more time, creating a gong and then coiled itself up with a sigh. “The Minor Beastsss of this planet will join me when I challenge a Contending raccce. The reassson that the challenge is usually Dragonsss, isss rather sssimple. Only the Leading Monster of the Portalsss getsss to Assscend. So, the she-dragon in thisss cassse sssent her children here, to conquer Nagsssin and Assscend asss well!”
“But you defeated them?!” Smegma replied, seeming to connect dots I was still having trouble even identifying.
“Yesss. My victory sssurprisssed the two Dragon children. They ssseeemed to expect an easssy time killing the creaturesss of Nagsssin.”
“That’s why the massive Wyrm Worms we fought on Crendalar are now on our planet!”
“Possssibly?” The Snake responded. “I cannot sssay. Still, all that’sss left on Nagsssin now, is my offssspring, and food. It’sss why I am ready to challenge the Trialsss. To ssstart my legacccy!”
“Can someone be explainin’ that in English?” Willa asked, looking at each of the others but finally settling on Smegma.
“Simply put, I think the Snake is saying that the Trials are essentially pitting a race ready to Ascend against a Monster ready to Ascend. Furthermore, the Dragons have created a sort of inheritance or bloodline, where they defeat a race, and send their children to the defeated planet to prepare to Ascend themselves?” Smegma turned the last part into a question, which the Snake nodded in affirmation to.
“So, we have to face Dragons in the trials? Or something like—that?” Dave asked, seeming to try to think of a way to describe the Snake but eventually failing, and just motioning at it nervously.
“Only now, talking to you, do I realizzze that thisss knowledge is not widely known. Dissscusssing it, makesss me happy. I made the right decisssion. Now the Sssyssstem.”
“That’s rather simple but also complicated,” Smegma said with a wince. “I’ve been through each planet since my own—“
“You’ve been on every planet, and failed to Assscend?” The Snake asked with clear mocking in its tone.
Smegma’s head fell but he did say, “Yes all five.”
“Five?” The Snake asked derisively. “The Sssyssstem has at least a hundred Competitorsss at any given moment. Maybe thousssandsss!”
Smegma’s head shot up, and he canted his head back and away from the Snake. His body language seemed to reject the claim.
The Snake began laughing. “Maybe you are not the bessst perssson to be lecturing me on the Sssyssstem.”
The Demon’s arms crossed, and then he chuckled himself. “Maybe not, but you still don’t seem to be aware that the System updates, learns, and changes.”
“Of courssse I know that!” The Snake hissed.
“Then how did you not know about Implied Terms?” Smegma asked, seeming genuinely curious.
“If it isss not written down, it isss not enforcccible!” The Snake countered.
“So, did your System have verbal contracts, then?”
“Verbal contractsss? No, what are they?”
“Your first request for the hundred Fish, and letting us live would have constituted a verbal contract—or what was sometimes called a Quest. Essentially, you asked for something, and we were trying to fulfill your request. So, until the end of said Quest, you couldn’t have harmed us, or hindered us.”
“This is not sssomething that exissstsss, sssurely. It would be usssed to—“ The Snakes head snapped up. “—That’sss why you made the offer in the firssst place!”
“Correct.” Smegma glanced back at me, his eyes twinkling with amused superiority. I couldn’t help but think that cockiness was going to get us in trouble one day.
“Sssmart!” The Snake complimented. “Explain more of thessse changesss to the Sssyssstem—I’ll ssstop you if I know it already!”
There wasn’t much time left, but Smegma used it to fulfill his part of the verbal contract with the Snake. Explaining all the changes he knew of since the System was on Crendalar Five.
Most of those changes the Snake was aware of, but it seemed to have a rather obvious blind spot. Things that would be considered parts of the System that changed due to societies. Things that made contracts, negotiations and deals on a planet or between races safer.
When the timer for the Portal closing finished counting down, the entire Cavern and lake shore, usually illuminated in the metallic yellow of the crystals, went gray.
I scanned my group, and found them all frozen in place. Smegma hovered over to me with a smug smile, and the Snake hissed angrily at a large screen that had appeared in front of it.
Then a screen popped up in front of me.