My first thoughts consisted of a cramped, yet celebratory feeling of a smooth stone shell surrounding me. My mind seemed to be evenly split between reviewing my character sheet and finding food, and with no loss in delay I did both at once. One mind willed my character sheet into existence, treating me to a board of new information and features.

Valerie, Hydrapprentice (II) Level: 1/10 Titles: Useless Strength: 9 → 15 Quickness: 12 → 12 Vitality: 7 → 21 Mind: 16 → 17+2 Offensive Skills Defensive Skills Utility Skills Magic Skills Corrosive Poison synthesis (II+) level 2 Rapid Healing (I) Level 1 Forceful breath (II+) Level 2 Water magic (I+) level 2 Bite (I) Level 4 Stamina cap (I) Level 3 Frenzy (I) Level 2 Scent (I) Level 2 Twin minds (II) Level 1 Stealth (I) Level 1

My stats had *jumped.* Quickness saw no change, and Mind only technically rose, but it beat losing any. strength grew most likely just enough to support this new size, but my vitality had more than tripled.

My eyes lingered on that part for a bit too long.

Two new skills had joined the list, of which I read about both in detail.

[Rapid Healing (I): Spend stamina to quicken natural healing]

[Twin minds (II-): Receive help from your extra head. When singletasking, increases Mind by 10% per level. When multitasking, can evenly split the new total, or dedicate only the bonus to your secondary head.]

II... Minus? That was new. + meant fundamental, so minus meant...

[Ephemeral. Skill cannot be evolved and fades on evolution. Spend 1 Fundamental Power to preserve this Skill]

I was a caster through and through, and blundered into quite possibly the single most important Skill a caster could have. And yet while my left head was thinking all those thoughts, my right head was straining it's new Strength score to break the shell open and hatch. It tried, struggling, in a sensation somewhere between a neck and an arm pressing to the back of a smooth rock, before it? I? spat our corrosive poison on the shell. It sizzled and hissed, and even though my own burned my right snout, a short hollow cry of pain turned to one of victory as light shone through. As one, both heads pressed against the acid- weakened spot, straining with successively louder cracks until we burst from our prison of stone into... A prison of wood. I sighed in defeat, right head seemingly content with eating my discarded eggshells while my left one surveyed the environment. Metal floor-to-ceiling bars comprised my immediate surroundings, coated in a familiar smell. A dull orange glow technically lit up the room, faintly glinting off other bars- though not ones I was familiar with

Were more of my species here? I looked at myself with both heads, mind bending under questions of identity.

"What even counted as my species anymore?" my left head mused, as my right observed. This was a non-trivial question; creatures tended to have an urge not to kill their own species

"Which of the two heads is me?" I knew that most of the time one brain meant one mind, but I felt no train of thought that wasn't my own. Only a more complex ego that wanted to plan and learn new things about the world and System, and a more simplistic id that wanted to eat and rest without being prey.

And while I was at it, "what did I look like?" I turned my heads towards eachother, not unlike a hybrid of pointing at your own hands and crossing your eyes. My pink shade had deepened to a magenta hue, black underbelly still kept. Twisting each of my necks in turn, I could see horizontal markings on the back of each one before they joined my main body: on my left, a calm even blue of water magic. On my right, a jagged dazzling overlay of purple and limegreen; the marks of my corrosive poison. My triangular torso ended in an aquatic tail, crystalline blades replaced with a more sensible tail fin.

Based on the size of the halls around me, I did not expect my evolution to raise my size that much. Stretching my heads high, I eclipsed the height of the doorway, and came up to around two-thirds of it's height at the shoulder. Looking around the room for more details, I felt my reptile ears pick up something. My heads whipped towards it, light from ahead spilling into the room and backlighting a clear struggle. A floating skull champed at the ropes that bound it, skeletal hands locked in chains below in stark contrast to a furry, bent-over creature that looked like a hybrid of a bull and a boxer. Spears still stuck out of his sides, drunken look on his face as he stumbled forward. A glow of light, a painful-sounding sizzle, and an angry moo later, and the punching bovine landed tail over tricep in the largest cage at the end of the hallway. Their captors, crimson and scaly, walked away after locking both cages.

[Skill: Stealth has risen to level 2.]

The System reminded me none of them had done anything with me, despite existing plain as day.

"So, can ya speak?" asked a sassy voice. I looked around with both my heads, pointing one to the more obvious creature sulking in the largest cage, and the other to the skull.

"Yes?" I answered, taken aback at the creature speaking to me. I had never thought about how I spoke, but the hollow roaring noises coming out of my more refined head evidently counted as speech. And so did the chattering of the skull as she floated in the cage across from me.

"Very nice. Miss bull here can't, but she knows what I'm talking about. Name's Hana." She explained.

"Miss bull? But aren't bulls-" I started to ask, before being cut off. "She does not like it when you say that. Nearly bashed my skull in when I made that mistake"

Recognizing humor when I heard it, I let out my attempt at a laugh.

"A skull must be worth a lot for you! I'm Valerie, Hydrapprentice" I greeted, extending a flipper through the bars.

"Ohh, I would have called you a weirdo. What kind of monster needs more than one head?" Hana laughed "A kind gesture, but my hands are well, stuck." Hana commented, jingling her rope-bound digits. Despite the thin-ness of bone, the ropes were elaborately tied, only causing no pain by skeletal creatures lacking nerves to receive it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

A smile spread across my face. "I think I can bust you out. Stick out your hands."

"Don't bother, they can tell if you're casting. All you mages see a problem and think you can-"

"I didn't say it was a spell." I challenged, id head sticking between two of the bars. Stick out your hands, ropes-first.

Hana reluctantly obliged, and I spat a drop of corrosive poison onto the rope. It missed, striking the bottom of the ship with a sizzle and small plume of smoke, clearing to reveal a smooth round divot in the plank.

"Oooh, you've got acid spit. If you can actually hit the rope, go nuts"

I sighed, almost trying again, when I remembered an old trick. I focused on summoning acid, trying to throw my will forward. Awaiting the muscle burn that never came, as a drop summoned itself into the air directly on a piece of the rope. It too began to smoke, strand weakening and letting the skull's hand wiggle.

"It's working, try again!" Hana encouraged, skull bouncing up and down as embers danced in her eyes. I summoned up a larger blob of the substance, noticing this level of Skills hardly taking any stamina now and chalking that up to much greater vitality. The orb splashed onto Hana's ropes, weakening the same point with ease- and with a flexing strain, she broke out. Poison-wet rope flew to the side of the cage and landed in an awkward pile.

"Now that they're free, what's the range on those hands?" I asked in a move of practicality.

"About halfway from me to you. They can operate from the other side of a box, but too far out and they get real sluggish."

"I see..." I commented, nodding.

"The big one can't speak, but she knows when someone's scared. Having trouble coming up with a name for her." Hana rambled, having moved her hand around the lock. I looked at her efforts, clapping my front fins happily when I saw what she was doing. Clicks and pondering sounded from the skeleton, muttering a stronger-than-normal curse in frustration. "This is takin' a while. See if you can-"

The floating skull didn't get to finish her thought, when something large blocked the door. It appeared to be an adult of the dark red lizard people, large size forcing it to crouch just to get through.

"Make a distraction, my hand's stuck" Hana whispered.

"No time like the present to test out my new kind of magic" I thought, looking towards the big creature. It moved ahead with great awkwardness, sword trailing behind it on the wooden boards, and I made my move the minute I saw it's yellow, feline eyes.

I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew what I wanted. That intention sprayed out from the base of my left skull, forming into a thin stream of water, conjured and held together by real power. The end result wasn't much, not directly, as all it did was get the big lizardman's snout wet. And most importantly, distract him from my new friend's lockpicking. A snarl escaped his lips, as with a fluid motion he opened the door. I sprang back, form too large and slower-by-proportion to dodge a grab, large scaly hand wrapping around my right neck. I, a small but proud dragon, would not take this lying down. My left head swiveled around and bit his arm, icthovoric teeth slicing at weak leather, tearing flimsy cloth, and scraping at underpowered scales. I didn't have the leverage for a frenzy, even less so when the lizardman threw me against the back wall. My side hit the timbers with a thud, and while I was taking time to recover the lizardman was off, saying something in a language that was almost my own.

"That took a lotta stones" Complimented Hana, triumphantly swinging her cage door open. "Now let's get you free."

In about half the time of the first lockpick, my cage door swung open. I stepped free, fins slapping across the ground, before realizing I was only slightly less trapped than before.

"What's your plan to get off the ship? If they wrestled you and your friend on, they can probably keep you there."

"Food supplies. I was going to feed her everything I could, but you look carnivorous! Hide in the supplies and have your fill, and they'll be all hungry and forced to dock. Then, we slip out."

"That's... very smart of you. If you can fly, why not just fly over the water?"

"I'm hydrophobic. The sea makes my bones crawl"

Not questioning how a skeleton could drown, I slipped through the supply crates with growing ease- and growing hunger. While I could more easily compartmentalize my thoughts with the air-gap between my brains, I very much had a stomach, a stamina allocation, and much use for each. With much exertion, Hana lifted the lid off of one, revealing nothing but nails. Another, potions of some sort. But a third? Rations. Slabs of pressed-looking meat of a type I couldn't quite identify, separated by crude paper. Twice the heads meant twice the mouths, and both wolfed down salted slabs like they were about to expire. Towards the last few layers, I was feeling full, but something caught my eye. A glass bottle of green liquid, seemingly misplaced. Curious of it's effects and trusting my toughness, I bit the cork off and poured it down my throat.

"What was tha-" Hana started, before the System cut her off. [Mutagen gained.]

While I could no longer perform the serpent's sustenance storage, my entire self was just that much larger. Dragging myself back to my cage was the real source of difficulty, culminating in me throwing myself over the threshold with a round squish.

"You look like a real pillow" Hana joked.

"Are you flirting with me?" I teased, curling up to rest off the feeding frenzy.

"You wish!" She answered, swiping downward with her bony hand.

The door burst open again, and Hana rushed to close her own door. It was only the smaller lizardmen, but a tilt of the ship caused my open cell door to bang shut and swing back open, right-sized lizardmen fishing for a key and arguing among themselves.

"They must have thought big bro forgot to lock the door." I realized, hearing it click shut in my sleepy state.

However, that System prompt unlocked something. I focused on my Mutagen count, eager for information.

[Mutagen is used to push yourself beyond the limits of your biology. You may choose to gain a new organ, or improve one of your own. When an organ ranks up, the user may pick between two of a wide selection of mutation options, or increase it's basic functions and efficiency]

[Cost to gain a new organ or promote an organ you have to rank 1: number of leveled organs you have, squared]

[Cost to rank up an organ: It's new rank, squared]

And that was the puzzle falling into place. My old siblings had mutations; some for their tail, some for their gills, and one for his horns. Whereas all I had was my copper heart.

Yay...

But this was a chance to change all that. I could only create or promote one organ before the costs would rise, and I had no idea how common this stuff was.

"My brains are important" I rationalized. "Protect them, and I protect everything else."

The system read my mind. [Mutations available for skull] it offered...

[Hardened Skull]

[Dynamic skull]

[Mana-conducting Skull]

[Skull +1]

This looked... bland. But in the case of keeping yourself alive, bland was blessed.

[Mutation chosen: Hardened skull.]

I felt the mutagen slip up my throats and buzz in my head like a swarm of productive bees. Felt it pour in new material, somehow strengthening the old. In my peripheral vision, I saw my heads' shapes change, and felt a wave of protection going right up to my brains. Followed of course by a wave of weirdness at having two.

"Looking silly." jokingly insulted Hana.

"You're just jealous because I have more skulls than you" she taunted, making some rude gesture I couldn't quite identify. "Those are my people, ya bigot"

My face faltered, jaw hanging slightly open

"I was just playin'! Everyone knows floating skulls aren' people"

The evening passed in relative silence, my Scent skill growing a level from detecting the changes in the air. It was only punctuated twice- once in the middle, where lizardmen hauled away the mostly-empty ration box with expressions of pride like they had gained a ton of strength overnight, and once right at the end. The big one threw open the door dramatically, walking down the stairs and speaking into a grey gemstone. Even more dramatically, in a language I could understand.

"We're under attack. The three of you may choose to leave your fate to our raiders, or fight for us. Whoever kills the most invaders earns their freedom, and we will be keeping count."

Hana and I looked at eachother with a skeletal smirk, and the lady bull roared. We were in.

And we definitely weren't going to play by his rules. Freedom would be ours. All of ours