<~> Book 3 - Chapter 141

I adjusted the strap of my armor again as all of us stood outside the dungeon. It had been three days since the 'changeling incident,' and the dungeon started releasing freshwater again two days ago. The only reason that we haven't gone in to kill the snake monster earlier is because the water mages tasked with pulling away all the salt from the water coming through desperately needed a break. In the time since, other soldiers have dug covered trenches near the entrance to better hold the water during the filtration process, which should take some of the load off of the water mages. Since the foundational pieces were in place for that, the delvers were being sent back in now. We planned to track down the snake monster and return before the flooding starts. While we're gone, the soldiers will reinforce the area inside the dungeon to fight the crabs once it's dead. Now that we know how long it takes for the snake monster to respawn, the soldiers should be able to work around the respawn time. Assuming it's consistent anyway.

A crowd of people had formed around the dungeon as we waited for Celeste to give the go ahead for us to enter. I could hear whispers and mutters about Luna being related to Celeste. The news had spread throughout the entire camp, and once we all returned to the city, it was doubtful that everyone would keep their mouth shut about this. I don't know much about how this world operates, but I'm sure this info would be pretty valuable to information brokers. Celeste told me the news wouldn't break more widely until the majority of the people go back to Ironcastle though, since the riders she's sending back and forth should be the most trustworthy of the lot.

I turned to Luna and watched her cute twitching fox ears poking out of her shiny blond hair. Her hearing wasn't as good as mine, but some of the people whispering rumors weren't being as subtle as they thought they were. ("Are you okay, Luna?") I asked.

Luna gave me a conflicted smile. ("I'm okay, I think. The last few days have been stressful, but I'm happy to be going back into the dungeon where everything tends to make a little more sense. It's been nice getting to know my mother better at least. Celeste doesn't feel the need to hide it anymore, considering everything.")

I looked over at the rest of my friends. Maxwell and Piper seemed a bit more relaxed. Their matching red hair was twisting in the wind as they joked around with each other. Iris was reading through the grimoire we had gotten her in Ironcastle again. The mousegirl has had to have read the wind magic book cover to cover more than a dozen times already, but she told me that she keeps finding things she missed in prior readings. Aria was restringing her compound bow with the special tools for it in preparation for the dungeon. Despite being focused on what she was doing, she managed to joke with the two and flirt with Maxwell the entire time. Her cat ears weren't twitching to eavesdrop on the rumor mill around us. She had quickly tuned everything out after the first day. "We can't do anything about it, so we shouldn't worry about it," she had said.

There was a bit of an anxious air among the delvers today. We would be fighting the snake boss again, but we were a bit more ready for it this time. At least we knew what we were walking into, unlike when it ambushed us. Supposedly, many of the fortifications that had gone up in the dungeon had stayed. For whatever reason, this dungeon was less interested in breaking down things that were left behind. Another odd quirk of this stranger than usual dungeon.

After a short speech from Celeste that I ignored this time, our group took point and went up the stairs first. I had a few nerves about how I was intending to fight the snake monster this time. I glanced over at Luna as we walked up the slippery stairs. ("Are you sure it's a good idea to use my new transformation in front of everyone?")

("We already talked to Jol'ket and Tor'jek about it. It's better they see the transformation now, rather than being wary of you later. Tor'jek has come around a little after you helped him with the changeling, so he should see the mana signature of your new transformation while he still knows you're on our side. Things would only be more complicated if we ran into him later,") Luna replied.

("I'll be revealing to everyone that I can also shift into monsters too, though.") I glanced down at my right hand. I could feel the change in my body's mana since I ate the changeling three days ago. I had done a little bit of experimenting with it, and now it was easier than ever to shift into the things I've eaten before. Using their abilities still drains my mana reserves, but holding the transformation and using their base form isn't difficult at all anymore. I also had a bit of control over how I looked while transformed. It should still be easy for everyone to identify me while I'm shifted into a different monster... but I was still conflicted about showing this off.

Luna frowned a little. ("If there's one thing that's changed since my relationship with Celeste has been revealed, it's how everyone's been treating me and, by extension, you. As long as you're by my side, no one is going to try and do anything to you anymore.") Luna sighed. ("Even Milana and Talia are acting a little differently toward us.")

I reached over and squeezed Luna's shoulder. ("I know. I think they'll relax a bit more once things settle down though. I like everyone on Valkin's team a lot more than I used to. Saving my life the last time I fought the snake boss helped a lot,") I said with a laugh.

We stepped out into the sand of the first floor. Now that I'm looking for it, I can see the salt the snake monster uses to block the stairs. This floor looks much like the first time we set foot here, except now there are wooden barricades set up, creating a bit of a maze near the stairs. None of them had disintegrated and disappeared into the dungeon, but many of them have been knocked around, presumably from the snake monster making sure to block off the crabs' escape from its feeding frenzy. Assuming that's what the snake is actually doing. It's hard to tell since it reacts to our presence, but that's been our best guess so far.

Aria walked over to me as soon as our team was up the stairs. "You ready to go looking for trouble?" she asked with a grin.

I sighed. "Alright, let's try out this plan of yours."

I felt a ripple of magic through my body as I began to shift. My tail lengthened, and as soon as it grew long enough, my legs merged with it as I grew a second pair of arms. I wasn't able to shift my armor onto this new form since it didn't have room for the extra arms, so my chest became bare as the snake-monster's scales covered me. A large cobra hood fanned out from my neck and I could feel the heat of all of my friends and taste their scents on the air with my forked tongue. I looked down at myself as my transformation completed. My body looked akin to my umber hound self, covered in wispy shadows coming off my black scales rather than dark fur. My eyes still glowed in this form, though I knew if I shifted myself closer to the snake monster, that would go away too. As it was, I looked like a hybridized version of the snake I fought and an umber hound, a result of the odd combination of the magic I took from the Fallow Dungeon's doppelganger and the changeling of this dungeon's second floor.

Aria whistled. "And here I thought you couldn't get any scarier. Are you still with us in there?"

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"Yes," I replied with sibilant hiss. I felt a bit embarrassed by the noise, but my tongue had made the sound on its own. Any s-sounds were being drawn out into hissing, and I couldn't make myself stop.

I flexed my four arms and slithered forward on the long tail I had in place of legs. I felt incredibly odd. With everything that happened to me since I came here, slithering along like this felt the weirdest.

Valkin froze for a moment at the top of the stairs before looking up at me. His anxious expression shone even through his wolf-like head. I now towered over everyone in this form. Depending on which part of my tail I balanced on, I could be much taller than even my umber hound form.

"Uh, okay, wow. I know I was warned about this, but I still wasn't expecting... that. How do you keep getting more freaky?" Valkin asked.

Taila punched Valkin's arm. "Don't be mean. I think she looks pretty cool..."

"Thanks," I replied. I cringed a little after speaking. It was like I had a bad lisp.

"Ah! You sound like a snakekin now. They're rare around here, but I've met some down south before," Milana said as she approached me. "Can I take a closer look, Helena?" Her long snow leopard tail flicked back and forth behind her, giving away some of her excitement. Her sister Talia rolled her eyes as she walked off in a different direction.

"Sure," I replied as I came lower to the ground.

To her credit, Milana only hesitated for a moment before coming closer and running her hand along my belly scales. Her touch felt a bit odd, as if she were rubbing me with snakeskin rather than the other way around. Luna quickly joined her and rubbed her fingers along a different part of my body. Iris was quick to follow too and rubbed her smaller hands along my tail. I started to laugh at the attention, but it came out as a weird amused hiss instead.

"This snake was a female. I can tell now that I've shifted into it," I told them.

"It is? I couldn't tell," Milana said as she looked over my body. The snake didn't have breasts or any noticeable external genitalia, but I could tell.

I nodded. "Trust me."

"If all of you are done playing around, we should start trying to track the other snake monster. Can you point me in the right direction, Helena?" Aria asked.

I slithered away from everyone and lifted myself further off the ground. This form had a unique sense, some kind of heat sensitivity. The snake's instincts guided me to follow a nearby heat signature where we would find the monster's den if we were lucky. The snake floor boss had to be hiding somewhere between the flooding events. I just went looking for somewhere that would make a good den. Aria and I would try and scout it out without engaging so we could fight it on our terms this time.

"This way," I said before slithering in the direction my new instincts guided me. My new snake-like body felt natural to move in as long as I didn't try to think about it. The more I focused on how I was gliding through the damp sand and grass, the more I would get confused and trip myself up. Not literally, I don't think I could actually trip like this, but my smooth locomotion would suddenly hitch until I put it out of my mind again.

As I moved in the direction of the source of heat I could feel, I began to taste the mana in the air increasing. The snake form's primary magic sense was taste, rather than the vague feeling I had in my umber hound form, or the magic sight I gained while using the blindfold. It was an intriguing experience to taste mana, but it felt almost as accurate as the blindfold was. I also worked on getting used to using four arms at once. Trying to move more than two at a time felt like trying to pat my head and rub my belly at the same time. It was possible, it just took concentration to pull off smoothly. I hoped it would feel natural when I wasn't paying attention once we started fighting the snake boss. Worst case scenario, I would shift back to my umber hound form in the middle of the fight. Rell'kor, the black and white drakken on Jol'ket's team, and the only one of their team I actually liked, had made us several anti-venom vials in preparation for the fight. As long as we weren't killed instantly, the poison shouldn't be a problem between the anti-venom and Piper's healing.

My sense of taste eventually picked up the other snake. We found the edge of its territory. "We should stop here until we're ready to fight it. I can't get any closer without alerting it. It will be able to sense me too," I hissed out.

Aria nodded. "I'll put down a marker. Shift back, it might be better if you come back to the stairs looking normal for now."

I agreed and shifted back to my beastkin form with my blindfold on. Shifting to this form felt effortless now, even easier than it used to feel when shifting back from my umber hound form. The only thing I couldn't shift easily was my eyes. The only way I could hide those so far was by shifting into something specific... like one of the people I had eaten. It created a perverse incentive to kill and eat humanoids that I hadn't had before... I could essentially replace someone like a changeling could, but it would require me to kill and eat them first. It was something I never wanted to do again... but it also weighed on the back of my mind. I would do it to protect my friends and family... and that admission scared me a little. Maybe once I gained even more control with these powers, I would be able to pose as others without eating them first, but that felt far away from me now.

Sighing, I turned around and followed Aria back to the stairs. I was getting stronger and becoming more dangerous with everything I fought and ate, both monster and humanoid. But I knew this strength would be needed to protect Luna once her secret heritage eventually got out. I would embrace being a monster to keep her safe if I had to.

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