Before her eyes, Nameless saw an unfathomable o of possibilities. But immediately the o began to narrow down to a much smaller set of options, then a subset of that appeared before her eyes. Eae a different version of herself. And she grimaced, as all of them were mase looking. Then all the dispyed options ged, being more feminine in appearahe potential bodies repeatedly ged until they settled into shapes she was far happier with. With amusement, she noticed that all of them had a generously curvy body shape. Yes, this was exactly the kind of body shape she wanted, now that she saw it.

  All of them were humanoid but with monstrous features. Nameless raised an eyebrow as she saw oh pink c and slug-like features such as slimy skialks extending from the forehead (thankfully, this form also had regur eyes in the right pce), and a slug-like tail extending from the lower back. After a brief thought she dismissed that. While she liked her slug friend, this form wasn't really her.

  Others, such as oh wings instead of arms and talons instead of feet, she dismissed offhand because she wao keep her arms and opposable thumbs. After that reje, the dispyed possibilities ged, removing all forms without opposable thumbs and dispying new ones in their pce. As Nameless eyed them, she realized she was going to have a harder time choosing.

  A cute form with scales, snake-like eyes, venomous fangs had some io her. She did dismiss the alternative that had a sail below the waist instead of legs. There was also oh lots of handy lookiacles, which she had a harder time turning down, but in the end she didn't like the octopus-like eyes.

  Then a new form appeared in the pce of the one she had just dismissed, and she immediately fell in love with it. It had everything she waoxic green scaly tentacles with special scales on the underside fripping, toxic green spotted and patterned fur like that of a painted dog, snake-like eyes, extensible cws on the hands a, a cute humanoid face with sharp teeth including venomous fangs, big round ears like those of painted dog, and she somehow khe form had a keen sense of smell. Oh! And the tentacles could spout snake-heads to i venom intets. That was a feature. Sure she would have to sacrifice a little bit of eyesight, but overall she felt like this was the ideal form if she had to be a monster. No, actually, this was the ideal form! It was both cute and menag and had the ability to attack from multiple angles. Plus it had poison and a great sense of smell! And it was super cute!

  And the form reacted to her love for it, approag her and toug her, merging into her. Then her body started ging, and she realized she had woken up from whatever state she was in. She felt the strange sensation of parts of her body she normally couldn't feel moving around and ging. Fur sprouted all over her ging body, and her shape transformed into a more womanly ohough thankfully she was still strong, muscles rippling uhe new yers of fat. Her teeth became sharp, and her es grew, being vemonous fangs she could extend aract at will. The scaled tentacles bursting out from her shoulders and sides she could already tell would take a bit of getting used to, though she felt like she was being helped with that by the entity g monsters' evolutions.

  Finally, the ges cluded and she looked over her body. It was glorious. It felt right. Trying to figure out how to thank the entity responsible had several names pop into her head, fed to her directly by the entity. After a bit of thought she settled upon Evolver, the most popur name used by monsters. "Thanks, Evolver," she said while patting her jacket which like the rest of her clothes had shifted to somethier fitting her new breasts and curves. Thank gods for empowered clothes.

  Then she looked over to her slug panion. Huh. The slug was suddenly much more humanoid looking, looking rather like a purple child version of the slug-humanoid form she had rejected. There was a curious look on the slug child's face as they looked over their own body then stared at her. And Nameless asked the question immediately oop of her head: "Why did you choose that form?"

  A little to Nameless's surprise, the slug-person replied in words she could uand. "Because you're strong."

  Nameless frow that. "I have a curse weakening me and I struggled in every fight up to now. That tiger was very powerful, and the oe nearly killed me even through my healing. The only thing I have going for me is my regeion and my stubbornness."

  The child said, "But they're dead and you're alive. So your kind of strength is better."

  Nameless paused as she realized she had no good terargument to that. Except one. "My healing ability is at the Transdental level. That's not so easy to reach. Please don't think you do the same thing as me unless you're at that level."

  The slug child stared at me, both their humanoid eyes aalks fixed on me. "I know. You're strohan me. I got the body with the best healing, but I'm still weaker than you."

  Nameless breathed out in relief. "So you know to be careful."

  They just nodded, and a thought struameless. She said, "You need a name. How does Lucrici sound?"

  The child frow that and Nameless began running through name possibilities until the simple Mirn won a nod from them.

  "Okay, Mir's get back to killing aing our way out of this pce," Nameless said.

  "What's your name?" Mirn asked.

  Nameless scowled. "I have a curse preventing me from having one. I'm gonna rip apart the bastard who id all those curses on me."

  Mirn tilted their head. "So there's someorohan you?"

  Nameless frowned. "Probably plenty of people strohan me, particurly right now as I am. Why, want to go with someoronger?"

  Mirn shook their head. "I like you. You share your food with me. I'll give you a name. Ah, it feels like I 't."

  "Curses are nasty like that," Nameless growled, "Just call me the nameless one or something."

  Mirn tilted aalk. "Okay, nameless, I was w, why were you going to the same pces again and again?"

  Nameless blinked. "...I was? Must be the curse that makes me always lost. Um, you just decide where we go."

  "Okay. That way." Mirn pointed down one of the hallways.

  "We'll go that way after I check my status." And Nameless did so, only for knowledge without words to enter her mind, followed by a message from Voice. She knew she was some kind of weird mixture of human, banehound (a dog-like monster capable of inflig woes upon those it bit), hermamba (a venomous monster snake dwelling ihers), and... Beyohat st part was the most eye-raising and arming. To think she artly one of those eldritch shitters...

  In terms of power the banehound added... cursih and cws, the ability to disease others particurly those she bit, poisonous blood, and the stronger ones (a strength she could perhaps hope to reach) could make their bites and cws burn as well as breath forth a siing, cursing, poisoning fire. The hermamba added a lot of venom aao the temperate extremes of the hers. And the Beyouff just made her weirder in some way that she couldn't quite uand, but she was able to grasp that some of it had something to do with her tentacles and their ability to turn into snake heads.

  What the shit, Nameless thought, the information that she still had her boon of Tower's Resilience barely registering in her mind. This was higher tier stuff than most monsters got in their first evolution from what she'd heard and even more than some of them got their whole lives. Then her incredulous thoughts were answered as Evolver informed her this was actually far weaker than what she would've gotten if she was at her full strength. Apparently all the abilities she now had also were weaker than they would normally be thanks to her Curse of Weakness and she was currently a long way from being able to use banefire.

  As she g Voice's message showing her unged list of Words and Sigils, she wondered not for the first time just who the shit she was. But a bigger problem appeared on her mind: she should've gotten at least one more Sigil by now. That Curse of Damnation was nastier thahought. She'd been thinking of tag the weakness curse after resolving the Curse of Doom, but Damnation just got higher on her priority list. The weakness curse could e after.

  A thought came to her and she g Mirn and asked, "What kind of monster did you get?"

  Mirn answered, "Young Mimic Slug."

  That wasn't what Nameless had expected. Mimic types were... potentially very, very nasty, particurly if they grew to the point where they could fwlessly copy others' abilities. Even without that, their ability to copy the shapes of other people and creatures and in some cases even objects made them dangerous in their own ways, and even limited ability copying could add a degree hteniility. Nameless determined not to uimate her cute little friend.

  She said, "Okay, I'm all loaded and ready to roll! Let those hostile monsters beware!"

  ~~~

  Nameless stared at the squid with bitey looking maws ad the very end of their tentacles. The maws clicked open and closed as the squid made an uling sound halfway between a squeak and an agonized scream while advang toward them, its foremost tentacles dragging it forward. "Well, here goes nothing," Nameless said and lunged her tentacles forward.

  Naturally, it lus tentacles as well, and for a brief while it turned into a strange game of tentacle feng as the two batants tried to bite each other without getting bitteing quickly sick of it, Nameless put up her arm, pressing them toward the squid monster's bitiacles which quickly took the bait, biting into her arm. Thankfully this monster wasn't too smart, apparently! With that opening, Nameless lunged her owacles forward, sinking the snake heads into what she could reach of the squid's body and pumping into it as much venom, disease, and curses as she could.

  Suddenly she had a writhing, filing squid moo tend with. Wing as the shrieking squid thrashed away at her, Nameless shielded her more vulnerable spots with her arms while tinuing to i it with unpleasantness. And then a halberd smashed into the hostile monster, ending it.

  Turning to Mirn, who was holding the halberd, Nameless fshed a victory sign. "Good job!"

  She was gd she had insisted on Mirn being the oo get the halberd as soon as the two of them had found it. It was a much safer way for the slug child to tribute thaing up close, and tribute they had badly wao do. "Keep your eyes out for openings like just like that," Nameless said, "Don't bother attag if they aren't super distracted or something, got it?"

  Mirn nodded. "Yes."

  Nameless grinned. "Now we feast."