I float.

I feel myself wrenched from my body, as I go to that place that I have never found a name for. The afterlife, the void, the ether, the beyond, the bardo. Whatever. It’s that place. You know what I’m talking about.

I feel a deep catharsis as my soul releases from the bindings of my ruined, mortal flesh. As I leave the minotaur behind, a vagrant spirit hitching a ride in a shell that was never mine to begin with, I feel light. Happy. Proud. It is an unusual feeling for me. Not that I’m not happy in my life, but… I’ve never made any progression like this. I’ve never fought like this. I’ve never been able to help anyone. But now, I can make a change, I have come to understand. I can push back against the hero party. I can help the other trash-mobs. Isn’t that something worth dying for?

I hate violence, don’t get me wrong. I realize now how much I really hate real fighting, gore, death. I know that sounds weird for a trash-mob, but I don’t want to hurt people. But I understand now that I have to. It is my place. I have to. If I want to progress, to help my other trash-mobs, I have to hurt the adventurers, I have to hurt the hero and they have to hurt me and my friends. We all have our role to play in this cosmic-game. I understand now dark-lord, I understand what I must do.

If I had a fist to clench in ethereal determination, I would. But I am incorporeal, I am nothing but a mystical vapor, trapped in some empty place. I wish demon-miasma was still around, but I guess they’ve found a way to leave the cycle and rest. I’m a bit jealous, like I said before, but…

Better. I feel better now.

I guess I keep getting these blue phases, where I get a little mopey. That happens when you die this often, okay, guy? But I got it now. I know how to break the cycle, I don’t know if there’s a greater point to it all in the end. But the point to me is that I can help. I can make a change. I can stop the death. I can have a purpose. Finally,

I didn’t see my menu this time though, after the fight? Does that mean I didn’t get any yellow stuff? Why? I got some after the slime and a whole bunch after the priestess, so why didn’t I get any this time?

The priestess. My mind lingers on her for a moment, on the white-magic. The healing. Healing? Healing! Dang. Well, yeah, dang. I get it now. Death. Death is the great cosmic checklist. I get yellow-goo when I kill things. So that means nobody died this time?

Good. Good. I didn’t get stronger, I guess, but… good. I hope it counted when I touched the stairs. I mean I guess if it didn’t, I know where to go, but-

The wretched shapeless thing that I am shakes and stretches like a cord being pulled too tightly. I feel an onset of the bleak cold. The touch of the reaper rejecting me once again, casting me from his doorstep, back down to the living realm. Am I not good enough for you reaper? Am I not pretty enough? Why won’t you love me?

I fall.

Dark. The world around myself is heavy, crushing, pressing. The roar of some unseen drone swishes past my ears, like the howl of a raging blizzard. It is cold, but there is no snow here, no ice. Warily, I open my two little eyes and peek out into the dark expanse before me. I see nothing but a bleak midnight-blue fill the world of my sssight~

Vague silhouettes dart through the darkness, just outside of the reach of my vision, floating, ssswimming~. Water. I am underwater. I rise up from my tightly bound coil, raising my head out of the shelter of the rock that I find myself inside of, my tongue flicking as I bob and weave around. My body feels light, floaty. Serpentine.

Ssss~

Carefully pressing out of the rock that I hide inside, I let my long, loose body unwind and float out lazily into the black murk of the depths. I am underwater. Is this the next floor? Floor ninety-six? Did I do it? Did I make it up a level? I must have! I hiss in excitement, my tongue shooting in and out of my sleek mouth. The water before myself swishes past my eyes from the disturbance. It must be. I remember. I remember this place. When was I here the last time? It was… it was…

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I don’t know. But I am happy. I hiss. Sss~

My body is long, but thin. My mind is small, but sharp; my venomous teeth are very much the same. My long, winding body stretches on behind myself, propelling me through the black water that I find myself beneath, as I quietly go in any direction that I can think of. It’s not like I know where I am going. I decide to try to go upward, to see what lies above.

I see a glistening sparkle catch my eye, a beam of light that shines in through the murk from above, bouncing off of something else down here with me. Something small. I hisss~

Propelling myself towards it in an instant, I strike with all the speed I can muster, faster than I can think, faster than I can perceive, my long body jolts forward and I plunge my maw around the little fish. I feel it twist, twitch, squirm, scream. I taste blood, red, but I am calm.

The serpent brain is calm. Present. Calculating. Cold. The fish squirms, it doesn’t want to die. Shh little fish, shh… you are with me now. Sssleeep~

As the insides of the fish leak out to its outsides, the vacant space in its meat is replaced with the venom, seeping from my two fangs. The movements slow, the twitching stops, the screams stop. Sssleeep~

Floating there idly with the dead fish in my mouth, I consume. I eat. I gorge the whole thing down my esophagus, expanding my maw wide open to take the entire carcass in, before another can smell it. Before another can steal it. It tastes… disgusting.

I snap out of the snake-brain for a moment, as I feel the fish lodged in my throat, my snake body convulsing to work it down. I don’t like fish, the first me doesn’t like fish. The snake loves it, but I don’t. Fish are gross, guy. But still. Food. I dislike the taste, but the sensation… The feeling of something going down my throat, entering my stomach. I can feel it in there, inside of me. Feeding me. Food. Real food. Not a rat, not a roach and not a slime or a goblin. But real meat. I feel a warmth rush through my body, not born of something physical, but sheerly out of joy.

The water is cold, deathly cold. As a serpent I am cold-blooded, my body doesn’t make heat, so I must find it. But there are others. Othersss~ -

Something beeps and my menu appears before me, the yellow goo. Not a lot. But some. I suppose fish aren’t worth much. But this proves my theory. Death. If I kill, I get stronger.

[https://i.imgur.com/lQJKfNC.gif]

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The serpent relishes the idea. It is hungry, gluttonous. It wants more. To eat more. To take in more. I must feed, there are others here. They are bigger, they will eat me if I don’t eat. Not out of love, like the slimes, no, they will eat me out of desire. Out of gluttony and greed and hunger. It’s cold. Why is it so cold? I swim silently onward through the darkness, the ambient roar of the water around myself the only thing I can hear through my tiny slit-ears.

Everyone is very quiet and they are right to be. We mustn’t wake her.

Floor ninety-six is a water level, as you might have noticed and as I seem to have forgotten. I don’t know if the adventurers can swim or not, but I can, as a serpent. I glide through the water like a black blade whistling through the air, like an arrow towards someone’s heart. I am agile and dangerous. But I move slowly through the medium. Steadily. Calmly. My body is calm, I am calm. Excitement wastes energy, it wastes food. It wastes life. As a serpent I must be calculating, efficient. Precise.

I think there are two parts to this floor. There is a walk-way above the water that the adventurers have to cross. It is an odd construction that is like a wall-less labyrinth. Just flat, slippery platforms going in every direction, some leading to nowhere, othersss~ leading to the ways in and out of the floor. The water, the water is filled with us. With my rivals. With food. We are many, but we are not as one. No brother is safe from another, no sister protected from her mother. We eat, we must.

There is more here though. More than serpents. There is the great-old-one. Even now, I hear her. She is floating idly, saving energy, sleeping, ssslumbering. But I hear her. The disturbance that her sheer presence makes in this water is palpable. The gentle sway of her fanged maw opening and closing sending out wave after wave beneath the surface can be felt. The glow of the dull light on her head, visible even here, this far in the distance. When the adventurers come, they must cross this place safely. Falling into the water is unpleasant. I hiss.

Stairs. I shake my snake head around, trying to pull myself back. The snake-brain is strong. Stronger than what I am used to. It is desperate for survival, it is built for survival. For it, I am additional. Unnecessary. Inefficient. I need to be careful. The stairs. The real stairs are up on either end of the floating walkway. I rise higher towards the surface, the light from above glowing brighter and brighter. A moment later, I pop my head out of the water and feel the touch of the firelight glow. Torches. A hundred torches and then some fill the room, their fire seemingly never burning through their fuel. It is warm up here, I close my eyes and feel the warmth, as I lazily float on the surface. I need to gather warmth from time to time. I can make none of my own, so I will die if I become too cold. Too cold like the water below. Sss~ -tairs!

I look around the cavernous area that I find myself in. The walkways, connected to each other with ropes, bob and sink in the waves. The waves come from her alone. Her movement, her mass. She still sleeps, I must be quiet. The sub-boss here can be skipped by the adventurers, I remember that. You can just leave the room if you get to the other side. She’s beneath the water, she sleeps for now. But the secret-stairs…

I look around. The blue tinge of the dripping cave walls, glowing with the dull orange of the firelight, fill this place. The crackle of their burning flames reminds me of an unpleasant memory that I want to forget. But my serpent mind relishes the feeling. The touch of warmth. My tongue flicks out of my mouth, over the surface of the cool, brackish water.

As I look around myself, I realize that if there are secret stairs here, they’ll be beneath the water, right? Not only have the stairs that I’ve found so far been hidden, but they’re hidden in places the adventurers can’t get to. By the secret slime area. Inside of the great-mimic. Places you would never think of looking.

I sink beneath the water. Slowly. Gently. Quietly. My tongue flicks again, as I float down below back into the murk. As I glide down back into the depths, I hope that maybe I can find them quickly, maybe I can make this a good life. My eyes catch the giant, faint dull glowing orb bobbing meekly in the distance.

I must be quiet, I can’t let her hear me, or I will be punished.