Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Anyway, moving on, before I spiral about that, let’s talk business. Show me what I can buy with my IP.

[System: roger doger, no worries, mate.]

The little menu blinks open in front of my eyes, and honestly my hopes are decently high; I’ve been through a lot, I deserve a treat.

[Solar-Powered Ant-Frier (Rank E)]

Wrap around a light source, focus it through my own ribs like a magnifying glass, cook enemies alive.

Cost: 60 IP.

[Absolute Freedom (Rank EX)]

Total immunity to every law of reality, unkillable, untouchable, a god among worms.

Cost: 999,999,999 IP.

[Hollow-Pipe Party-Whistle (Rank E)]

Scream through my own hollow body like a demonic party favour, deafen everything nearby forever.

Cost: 500 IP.

I stare at the numbers for a long, long moment.

Old mate. Old mate, why does the whistle cost five hundred? Why does a glorified fart noise cost more than one of my organs is worth?

[System: oh, uh. Yeah, about that. So apparently if you keep spamming the "change skill" button, it starts upping the prices every time you do it. Bit of a bug, really. Didn’t think you’d hit it this early.]

So you’re telling me I broke the shop.

[System: little bit, yeah. Shame too, that freedom one would’ve made you a mad cunt, might be worth waiting a day or so for the prices to reset.]

A day?

A DAY!

I could’ve had ABSOLUTE FREEDOM. I could’ve been an untouchable god-snake floating above the laws of causality itself, sipping champagne while Hana and her stupid bored footsteps burn in the fires of my unstoppable ascension, and instead I’m looking at a five-hundred-point kazoo.

I flop dramatically onto my dog bed, coiling into the world’s saddest cinnamon roll.

Why. WHY, I had it, oh man, and it was RIGHT THERE. I was ONE random day away from becoming a literal deity, and now I have to just, what, sit here, and WAIT.

[System: yep.]

This is discrimination. This is systemic snake oppression; I am being kept down by a broken shop mechanic and a cruel, uncaring universe.

[System: mate, it’s a pricing bug, not a conspiracy, you just can’t spam the skill resets, easy as.]

I don’t respond to that because I’m busy imagining the life I could’ve had. Unkillable and unstoppable. Freed from taxes, freed from Hana, freed from the horrifying reality that I am a pencil-sized snake wearing a bunny costume hiding in a sewer pipe. That could’ve been me. That WAS me, for about four seconds, until the prices ruined everything.

...Okay.

Okay, fine. Fine. I just have to wait a day; that’s it, one day. I can do one day; what could happen in one day? I’ve survived worse, and my own crushing self-esteem issues; I can survive twenty-four hours of not having god powers.

Still would’ve been nice though.

[System: yeah, mate. would’ve been funny watching you try to use it, too.]

Shut up, wake me up when the prices go back to normal.

[System: remember, once a skill pops up it’ll never pop up again.]

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I flop harder, if that’s possible, wriggling around on my dog bed until I nearly roll myself entirely off the side. My head dangles over the edge, tongue lolling, dramatic as hell. Gone. Absolute Freedom, gone forever. The only thing left is the flavourless taste of what could have been, and the faint humiliation of knowing the System would have let me nuke reality just to watch the fireworks.

Maybe it’s a test. Maybe this is an elaborate hazing ritual and Old Mate is about to bust out the real rewards now that I’ve been sufficiently humiliated.

[System: oi. noodle boy. you still with me or you gonna lay there sulking all day.]

I don’t answer; I’m committed to the bit.

[System: right, well, while you’re busy being a sad little churro, quick question. You remember what this place is called yet.]

...Do I have to?

[System: humour me.]

Fine. It’s not Earth; I know that much. I’ve died and gotten a whole system implanted in my skull; that’s usually a sign you’re not in Kansas anymore.

[System: yeah nah, it’s Ami. Good on ya for remembering the "not Earth" bit at least.]

Ami. Right, ami. Why is it called Ami?

[System: dunno, mate. Above my pay grade. probably some bloke named it and it just stuck.]

Riveting. Truly the lore I needed today.

[System: anyway, speaking of things you need. you remember you’ve got a stash waiting for you, yeah? Behind that poster. near the market.]

The tin box.

Oh.

OH.

The dramatic flopping stops immediately. I uncoil off the dog bed so fast I nearly give myself whiplash, because right, right, the tin box, the little hidden stash tucked behind the cop poster on the wall on the outskirts Twawi Market, the one she’s supposed to leave for me because she’s the single greatest woman to ever exist in any universe, Earth or Ami or wherever the hell I’ve ended up.

Lyra.

My Lyra. My dark elf, my wife in every way that matters even if there’s no piece of paper anywhere with our names on it, the love of my stupid tiny life. I miss her so much it actually aches somewhere behind my ribs, a physical pull dragging me toward the market like a fish hook through the sternum.

[System: yeah figured that’d get you moving, quick thing though.]

What.

[System: you’re still wearing the bunny onesie.]

I freeze mid-slither.

[System: just saying. Bit weird, turning up to see your missus dressed like you’re four. And what if you bump into someone on the way, hey, imagine that. Tiny snake, bunny costume, absolutely cooked, I mean I’m not going to kink shame, but I’m going to shame this for sure.]

The horror of that image alone is enough motivation. I wriggle and squirm and shed the stupid fabric off in three seconds flat, kicking it, well, "kicking" is generous when you have no legs, more like flopping it off my own body through sheer force of will into the corner of the pipe where it belongs, which is nowhere near me ever again.