I pulled myself through the wall-crack within the small-tunnel, safe at last. The war raging on in the mana-water cavern had fallen silent in my wake, the sounds muffled by the distance between us. Were I in better condition, I might still be there; it would have been nice to scavenge the dead Aridae. It would have been nice just to watch them die.

They deserved nothing less, for their insults towards the Great Core.

Instead, I coiled upon myself - wishing that I could die in their place. The rotting sickness of the rot-flesh bad-things, which I now knew were called Festering Rats, had already begun to set in. I had hoped that the change that occurred when it shifted states would have kept most of the effect at bay. Maybe it had.

It was difficult to tell.

As I thought, [Venom Resistance - Basic III] wasn’t helping. Then again, it wasn’t venom. The rot of Festering Rats was a poison of another kind.

I chewed on the tip of my tail, fighting the urge to vomit - what, though, I didn’t know. There was nothing in my stomach. Not anymore. [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail] pushed my wounds into that itching, tickling state of still-healing that it did. My stomach quieted slightly.

My mind, a little less.

Already, I could see the bad-dreams beginning. From my previous experience, I knew that they would start small. Little flashes of movement at the corner of my vision, making me think that bad-things crawled at the spots that I couldn’t quite see. Little bouts of paranoia, heightening those glimpses, building upon them. Before, I had been able to curl around the Great Core. I had been able to feel safe in its light.

Now, that option was gone.

Now, I had only myself.

I distracted myself with the flickerings of the thought-light, pushing my attention towards it.

Name: Paradox

Species: Snake, Ouroboros

Major Title: [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail]

Minor Titles: [Minor Mana Core]

Innate Traits: [Venomous II]

Blooded Traits: None

Resistances: [Piercing Resistance - Basic II] [Venom Resistance - Basic III]

Level: 1

Trait Points: 1

Core Skills: [The Endless Cycle]

Lesser Core Skills: [Mana Manipulation II] [Mana Venom I]

Description: A nascent Ouroboros, symbol of the eternal.

It had changed slightly. In defeating the Infant Aridae, I had reached level 1. That was the same as last time around. I had also gone a fifth of the way towards receiving a Blooded Trait, whatever that meant. I had hoped that anything I consumed would help that progress, but the thought-light taught me that wasn’t the case. Each type of bad-thing moved me towards acquiring a different Blooded Trait.

I thought at the thought-light some more, pushing it towards a new idea. It was something that I had noticed last time, but had forgotten about after being captured by the Aridae.

Available Trait Points: 1

Use Trait Points To Upgrade A Trait?

The choice was simple, being that I only had one trait. I tried to upgrade [Venomous II].

2 Trait Points Required For Upgrade of [Venomous II] to [Venomous III].

Upgrade Failed.

The choice wasn’t so simple. I thought-guessed that the upgrade cost more because it was at a higher level. If I had been trying to increase [Venomous I], it might have worked. That thought-guess felt right.

I hissed, the exultant susurrations of my forked tongue pleasing to the ear. Not only had the Great Core gifted me with great potential, but it had gifted me with great intelligence as well. Surely no other creature could make the leaps in logic that I could. It was unthinkable. The bad-things were bad-things. They were dumb, stupid things made by disgusting, lesser Cores.

The Coreless were no different, with their nonsense babbling and jabbering.

I hissed proudly. It wouldn’t be long before I showed them all the might of the Great Core. Not long at all.

A flash of movement at the corner of my eye pulled me back from my plotting. There was nothing there.

I bit my tail again.

Sharp fangs pierced through scale-flesh. Blood welled from the wound, lightly coating the air with the scent-taste of ore-flesh. A moment later, it stopped, healed again.

The bad-dreams, on the other hand, didn’t stop quite so easily.

Instead, they only got worse.

The Great Core’s light shone down upon me, showering me with its wondrous glow. I basked in the light, letting the warmth soothe my trembling scales.

I started at the thought.

Why was I trembling? I couldn’t ignore it, now that I had noticed it. I was shaking, as if enveloped in terror.

Something flashed in the corner of my eye. I turned, only to catch something else in the other direction. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, it stayed forever out of reach.

The light went out.

The Great Core left me; I was shrouded in darkness, unable to see what was in front of me. The movement was still there, I was sure, hidden in the darkness that surrounded me.

I could hear them.

I could hear the scuffling of many legs. I could hear the squeaking of many mouths. I could hear them come for me.

For me, alone.

Alone, because the Great Core had disappeared.

Its light was gone.

In the darkness that remained, the bad-things reigned. They warred in the shadows, misting the air with blood-scent. They stabbed and shrieked, they clawed and cawed.

I coiled upon myself, hoping that they wouldn’t find me.

Hoping that the Great Core would find me, instead.

It never did.

It never came.

But they did. They always did.

Fangs pierced my scale-flesh. Claws gouged furrows from what remained. Spikes stabbed my length, pinning me to the ground. Threads wrapped around me, holding me tight.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t escape.

I couldn’t breathe.

I could only pray.

The Great Core never came.

I woke up to darkness. Not darkness in the physical sense; little bits of light filtered through the tiny wall-crack that connected my room to the small-tunnel outside. No, I woke up to the darkness of my mind.

The darkness of my fear. The fear of being abandoned, of being cast aside as a failed creation, of being bound in crimson-coated threads that I couldn’t escape.

The bad-dreams were gone, but my little room was far from quiet. It was filled with the sigh of vibrating scale-flesh on stone.

I couldn’t quiet the trembling.

I couldn’t quiet the fear.

Eating the Festering Rat had been a mistake. Its effects had brought the bad-dreams. Its effects had forced me to remember again.

Blooded Trait or not, I probably wouldn’t be able to consume one again. I didn’t want to face the bad-dreams. I didn’t want to face my fears. I didn’t want to feel abandoned.

I wasn’t abandoned, I knew. In the end, the Great Core had brought me back - but the scars on my mind had stayed. The niggling question that asked me: would it bring me back next time? Or would it give up on me, give up on its creation?

I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to find out.

The thought shamed me - as did the realization that my crusade against the Aridae wasn’t entirely to enact holy vengeance for their insult towards the Great Core. In part, it was that. But there was more to it. It was to prove my worth, to both myself and the Great Core. It was to prove that I was worth saving. It was to prove that I hadn’t been a mistake.

It was to punish the bad-things for my loss of certainty.

My tongue flicked outwards, slipping through the opening in my lips. The air tasted clean in the way that the World Dungeon rarely did. The scent of the Festering Rats had disappeared; they had probably run away from the mana-water cavern while I was lost in the bad-dreams. Even the blood-scent was faint, wafting slightly from the long-dried droplets that had run down my scale-flesh.

I gathered my courage; I gathered my faith.

I slipped through the wall-cracks.

There were still many more Aridae to consume.

There were still many more bad-dreams to defeat.