Chapter 255: Molt

Loth collapsed suddenly, but Will could see that it was her Class doing something to her body, so he wasn’t terribly alarmed.

It was, however, terribly inconvenient.

The thirteenth Floor was where they were all going to start leveling again, up to Level 59, with a plan to dip their toes on the 14^th Floor and snag another Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Upgrade before they went back down, but if Loth’s status was uncertain it might be too risky to attempt it.

I’ll give it some time.

They were all wearing Abby, so they could get back to the 10^th Floor pretty quick by skipping the 12^th Floor with a Door and catching a ride from Zodiac to the Burned Stronghold.

Will glanced again at the miasmatic structures pulsing through Loth’s body, snipping parts here, lengthening parts there.

Will made a quick sketch and stored it in his legend.

Not sure what’s going on exactly, but couldn’t hurt.

“Is Loth okay?” Brianna asked, having noticed Loth’s sudden collapse.

“I think so. Her Class is undergoing some kind of change, so I think she’ll wake up when it’s finished.”

“Did she start her Class Advancement or something?” Travis asked, leaning over Will’s shoulder.

“Travis can you make some lures and draw monsters away from us? Let’s try and stay safe until Loth wakes up.”

“Sure.”

Without a word, five extremely punchable looking copies of Travis sprung into existence around them and started sprinting in opposite directions.

Will secured the air around them with Aspect, creating a small shelter that was enough to prevent the proto-curses from touching their bare skin.

Travis furnished the hut with illusory furniture and a lamp, and Brianna prepared lunch while Will experimented with his Map.

By enlarging the tabs of his legend, and with a little creativity with how it was folded, he was able to manifest the physical copy of his map as a book. The map portion was shrunk down into the binding and the legend tabs became individual pages.

Like that, Will was able to physically rifle through his sketches of different miasmatic structures, comparing each of them to what was happening to Loth. Flipping through physical pages with his hand as he read somehow allowed him to remember things better.

It kind of resembles the regeneration of an Immortal Serpent, Will thought. Except some key portions are different, and there’s none of the changes being displayed here.

Will kept making sketches until Loth’s Class settled down, not wanting to miss anything.

After about an hour, Loth’s skin turned slightly grey around the thinner parts, alarming the shit out everyone, but when they checked her pulse, they saw that it was merely dead skin.

She’s…molting?

Loth began wiggling like someone wrapped in a too-tight blanket, sloughing off black scales on the surrounding campsite, her scales greying as they detached from her body.

A moment later, Loth’s hand clawed its way out of her former skin as the kobold climbed to her feet, leaving behind an alarmingly Loth-shaped shell.

“How embarrassing,” Loth said, climbing out of the husk of her former skin.

“…You got taller.” Will said, measuring her against himself. She had gone from waist-height to belly height. About six inches of growth.

“Indeed,” Loth rasped. “Water?”

Brianna offered her their waterskin, and Loth drank it like someone who had just finished a marathon, gasping for breath at the end.

“And about fifty pounds of meat?” Loth asked, handing the waterskin back to Brianna. Her stomach was sucked in and her arms barely skin and bone. She looked like she’d been starving for months.

“We’ve only got thirty pounds of jerky.” Will said.

“I’ll make due.” Loth said, staggering over to her barrel, her wing-stubs wiggling against her back.

“Uh, Loth,” Travis said, raising a finger.

“Eh?” Loth grunted uncharacteristically, snagging a steak bug from her barrel and devouring it before grabbing another.

“You’ve got wings.”

Loth craned her neck to glance over her shoulder, the tiny wings about the size of a man’s hand twitching weakly under her gaze.

“So I do.” She said before continuing to massacre her emergency rations.

After about fifteen steak-bugs, Loth collapsed against the side of the barrel, falling asleep.

“I guess it’s good she’s okay?” Brianna said, her tone making it a question.

“No, we’ve got a problem.” Will said, watching the changes start again in her Class. “I suspect this is gonna keep happening until she reaches whatever her full size is supposed to be.”

“We don’t have that much food.” Travis pointed out. “Do we head back to the Burned Stronghold, then?”

There were plenty of steak-bugs there, but…

“We can’t,” Will realized, pointing at Loth’s castoff skin. It still had Abby wrapped around it, meaning she was currently Acclimating to the 13^th Floor. “She’s stuck here for the time being.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

They didn’t have enough food, and Will was concerned that if they forced her bear the hunger, her growth might become stunted, which would be the same as tripping at the finish line. Loth had dedicated most of her life to achieve this, and Will wanted to make sure it was the best possible result.

“…let’s go to the Rotwitch’s Stronghold and call in some favors.” Will said, rubbing his chin.

Loth, meanwhile, dreamed about pain, itching, and hunger, in a seemingly endless nightmare that felt like it would never end.

When Loth finally came to, she spotted Anna sitting beside her, shelling a roasted steak bug.

“Steak bug?” Anna asked, holding out a platter of them.

“Not hungry,” Loth said, sitting up in bed and scanning the room. It was a simple room made from partially decayed wood and eroded stone. Rotwitch’s Stronghold. Loth confirmed it by the oddly desaturated light leaking in from the partially shuttered window.

“Where’s Will?” Loth asked.

“You kept passing out and waking up only to eat a huge amount of meat. You couldn’ leave, so Will made a deal with Zodiac to ship some more food up. He’s on the 12^th Floor acting as a relay for freight.” Brianna said. “Should be back as soon as we clear a Key Site.”

Loth’s heart hurt, prompting her to throw her arm over her eyes.

“Why does he have to be so…” A lot of words came to mind, getting jumbled up together and creating a dam before they could leave her mouth. “You know?”

“I know. I think he took your words on leadership to heart. Turns out good leadership is attractive. Who knew?”

Loth sighed and turned her attention to herself. Her entire body felt weak and soft. Her scales and claws felt the tiniest bit pliable, which indicated a molt sometime in the last eight hours. She hadn’t molted since she was two.

How embarrassing. Her friends had seen her molt like a child.

Loth turned and hung her legs off the side of the bed, surprised when her feet touched the ground.

“This bed’s kind of shor-whoa!” Loth wobbled a bit before Anna stabilized her. The human girl’s hand was…smaller than hers?

“No, wait…you’re short?” Loth mused, rising to her full height. Anna was more than a head shorter than her, now.