He sat there on the cool tiles, a sharp contrast to the air around him which was thick with the smoke of rare incense. Cross legged, he was seated on the floor only a foot away from his book, the tome of arcane knowledge gleaned from the great one, through intense study and meditation. He closed his eyes, filling his lungs with the cloying greenish smoke that permeated the room. As his did so, he could feel his mind uncoiling from his body, stretching out, and out.

As he drifted further away from the world that was, he distantly heard the scrape of his book's binding as it lifted from the floor, its pages fluttering open to face his still form. He was opened, ever so slightly to the song of father Yig. He heard it in his mind, in his emotions, it vibrated within his soul as he attempted to listen to the song, which was sung without voices or sound. He could feel his mind stretching, fluttering and churning in the currents of the dark between stars. As that song permeated his being, he was no longer just himself. He envisioned a cup being dropped into an ocean, a breeze sucked into a hurricane, a whisper in a deafening chorus. 

When he felt as if his mind were no thinner than the most gossamer thread of spider silk, he saw. A glimpse of the great one, the immense and unknowable consciousness that was Yig, there moving effortlessly through realms known and unknown to only dreamers and even beyond that. Merely brushing against him, a particle, a grain of sand touching his scale as that leviathan of knowledge passed him by was enough to send sensations of deep wisdom, profound pain, and the euphoria of expansion humming through his very existence.

When he could bear it no more, he fell into the dark bliss of unconsciousness. The ritual complete, and his mind far expanded beyond what it had been before. He was successful. 

When he awoke, he was still seated in the lotus position, the book of serpents lain perfectly on the ground before him. The first thing he noticed oddly, was the distinct lack of the need to blink. One of the brotherhood brought forth a mirror of burnished silver for him to witness his new appearance. When one of Yig's coven was deemed ready to expand his mind, his form would often change as well by merely exposing himself to the great one ever so briefly. The disc of polished metal revealed that he was far more divine that he has once been.

Instead of the face of a man, the mirror had shown the green scaled visage of a serpent, vertical unblinking eyes peering over supple scales. As the mirror was taken in my trembling hands I had noticed my body had undergone many changes during my experience. Patches of keeled green scales covered most of my skin, thickest around my shoulders, back, and the outsides of my arms and legs. The smooth skin still present along my stomach and bottom of my chest had darkened, from a cream color to one more akin to the deep born-red of clay rich soil. My body, besides my head, had retained much the same shape though, and upon further inspection, I could even make out the occasional discoloration left behind by old scars from injures in the past.

I was no longer the mostly human caste known as the "Pureblood". No, I has ascended to the rank of Malison, given that I had taken on a more serpentine visage and therefore had become closer to the divine in the eyes of the Yuan-ti.

I would never forget that day for as long as I lived.