Carols

When we last left our intrepid, enchanted, electrical hero, he’d just come upon a powerful light source that perfectly complemented his magical capabilities. Coincidence? Deus ex machina? Hard to say! Regardless, with his trusty Orb of Arching Bolts, our explorer friend was able to venture deeper than ever into the cavernous belly of the draconic titan whose stomach remains his simultaneous home and prison.

It’s pretty gross down here, you guys.

The dragon’s digestive system appears to resemble that of a bovine, but with more flames and a greatly increased capacity. Unless it was a dire cow. Those things are fucking huge. Anyway. There must be more than one stomach to hold all of this food and perform the necessary digestive processes. The dimensions of the stomachs—I know not if there are more than two, but so far, two—are mind-boggling: after I shuffled through the narrow tube connecting the two guts, I tumbled headfirst into a huge lake of acid stretching far beyond the reach of my light. Thankfully I landed near a couple floating barrels of Dwarven IPA. This stuff is really nasty, usually. Despite their reputation for brewing, dwarves do not make good IPA. Simple fact. I was able to clamber aboard one of them and float around for a bit. But this wouldn’t do. I needed to find a better means of transit. What hope had I for reaching solid (squishy) ground by drifting idly on a barrel? Was I destined to float aimlessly around this endless ocean of bile?

And then I spotted the kayak.

I’m cruising now! I can’t believe my good luck! This kayak is crafted from Highland Bladewood, arguably the lightest and most useful type of timber for boat construction. There was no paddle, but I smashed the beer barrel, dumped the swill from inside, and built makeshift oars. I felt a bit like Calvin from my favorite comic strip: destroying the contents of the cardboard box and keeping the box to play with. But seriously, Dwarven IPA is undrinkable. Ask anyone. Stout, okay. Porter, sure. But not IPA.

I’m in such a good mood that I’ve decided to sing some Christmas songs. It’s almost the day we commemorate the birth of Sir Isaac Newton, after all! Also Clara Barton, Louis Chevrolet, Dark Warder Baxeni Thundercry, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Buffett, and Dynina, Lady of the Land of Pure Light. I like to make holidays efficient by celebrating as many things as possible at once.

Sloshing through the flow / of acid every day / o’er this lake I float / a dragon yet to slay! / hope he won’t take wing / for then I’d catch a flight / yes, me and all my awesome loot / careening out of sight!  Oh!

Siiiiilent night / hooooly night / saaaalvged steak / taaaaastes all right / haaad I naught but a kniiife and fooork / Iiii think beeeef tastes beeetter than pooork / sweeeet, some old rusty keeeeeeys, maybe I’ll just eat with theeese…

Last Christmas / I rolled 10 on Fort / but in the next play you cast / Ray of Decay / this year / I’ll fight against Fear / cuz my saves are quite especial…

-was that a tentacle?

Ahhh!

Guy.IAD

Lost & Found

I’m seriously lost down here now. I tried to find my stomachmarks in the wake of my recent cooking catastrophe and aerial adventure—still haven’t seen that helmet or any of my old supplies—but when I finally landed I was hopelessly disoriented. It doesn’t help that the only source of light I have in here is little bursts of static electricity I can create when I snap my fingers. Makes it hard to find my way around when I get tired of snapping. I’ve got to find another means of making light. I attempted to ignite a rag on a stick—okay, actually a dry piece of leather affixed to a femur—with my Volt spell to make a torch, but all I did was vaporize the hide and make the bone explode. Ouch. Probably shouldn’t’ve done that. Now I’ve got a small burn on my hand and a very blackened chunk of what was once a cow, I think. Anyway.

Being inside a dragon has given me a new angle to reflect on life. I hope you’ll pardon a minor dissertation on the matter: I shan’t go on too long, I promise. So here I am. In a dragon. I’m officially food. But I’m still alive, and so far I have no reason to think the dragon is able to obtain any kind of nourishment from me while I remain as such. After all, don’t you need to absorb the nutrients from things in order to count them as food? I mean, if you eat something and throw it up later, you didn’t really eat it did you? So anyway, with me still alive I can’t really be counted as food.

What does that make me, then? I’m an intruder here in the stomach. Not a willing one, sure, but still. Does that make me a parasite? I’ve been eating (or trying to eat) the food that’s supposed to be for the dragon. Parasites are one-way deals though. They don’t give anything back to the host. And while you can rest assured I won’t be sending this dragon a Christmas card in a few weeks or a Facebook post on it’s birthday, I still feel like the dragon get something out of this deal: namely, whatever nutrients it’s absorbing from my legs as I wander around in here. Also, I’ve taken the liberty of organizing the various dead livestock I come upon so they’re easier for the dragon to absorb. The fuller it feels, the less often it will take off and send me on wild journeys though the hot air like I’m on the business end of the gravity gun in Half-Life 2. Plus it looks way better in here now. Tidiness is important!

So we’re kind of symbiotic, in a weird way. I’m a living source of nutrition, and the dragon has the courtesy to keep eating stuff that I can eat. Plus there’s sweet loot in here. Seriously sweet loot. Even though I don’t know where I am anymore, I’ve been gathering what I can from around the area just in case I need it later. If I can find somewhere pretty stable, I might be able to build a hut or something. So far I’ve acquired a tattered messenger bag, a couple of throwing daggers, some gemstones, and a soggy copy of Every Day with Rachel Ray from August ’08. Who was keeping this magazine? Why? Whatever. Time to rummage through another pile of adventurer bones.

Oh hell yes! I found something super awesome in here: an Orb of Arching Bolts. I used to have one of these when I was a kid. It’s a baseball-sized glass sphere, cool white in color (okay, yes, it looks like a light bulb), and when it’s struck with electricity it lights up like one of those awesome plasma orbs. You ever play with one of those? They’re crazy. I always wondered what would happen if you broke the glass. I lived in perpetual fear of doing just that: what if when you broke it the little plasma spirit inside came out and latched onto you? You’d shock everyone you touched. Makes it hard to mack on the ladies, know what I’m sayin’?

Okay. Light source: got it. Any idea where I am: no. Baby steps. Baby steps. I think I’ll head toward the narrow section I saw a while ago. I thought I heard the sound of oars in water… must’ve been my imagination.

-Guy.IAD

Fireworks!

Romance, as you might expect, is hard to come by in the stomach of a dragon, but who's to say it can't be found?

Last night I had difficulty sleeping; I just couldn't seem to get comfortable in my hammock (the changes in altitude make things tricky), so I decided to take a small walk. I remembered reading once that dragons have hearts made of pure fire, so I set off to where I thought was up to see if I could get a look at it through the layers of tissue.

Of course I ended up getting lost, no one ever thinks to study dragon anatomy beyond 'this is where the fire comes out' and 'these are the pointy parts you should avoid.' Anyways, I stumbled across a rare discovery--a dry spot!

It looks like I'm inside a serious treasure-hoarder. The dragon has a dry place in its stomach where all the gold it has swallowed have formed a sort of alluvial sandbank. It's snug against a wall of stomach lining, and while it isn't the most comfortable place to sit, the stench is a little weaker and it gave me some time to let my clothes dry and think over my situation.

Blogging and copious amounts of treasure are fine and all, but a girl has needs. I was just thinking that it sure would be nice if the dragon would swallow a dance party of gorgeous men for me when the most amazing thing happened.

I don't know if there were fireworks or a crazy sunrise or what, but all of a sudden there were huge bursts of colorful light outside the dragon! I managed to find an ornate wine vessel nestled amongst the wondrous items. I drank wine while watching the light-show and had a great time of it, despite the serious lack of dancing men.

There must have been others enjoying it too, I heard some faint shouts in the direction the lights were coming from. So romantic!

-Girl.IAD

Time Passes

I've begun attempting to devise a timekeeping system for myself here. My watch was smashed during the swallowing process. But I've started to figure out how long it takes certain things to dissolve, and using this method, I can sort of get a feel for how much time is passing. Guts and organs usually go first, within perhaps two hours. Skin takes longer. Maybe five hours. Bones take the longest, so they're not of much use. Also, the dragon eats on a regular basis, so when something fresh comes tumbling in, showering me with a cascade of its hot, sticky innards, I at least know it's been about twelve hours. That's how often dragons eat. Or were you not aware? What do they teach in that school of yours?

Comments on my telepathic blog posts appear to return to me as echoes in the dragon's stomach. This makes for some rather odd situations, as I've already found myself at least once today shouting, "I disagree with your point but I respect your right to hold your own opinion!" Which seems silly when the only things around you are fleshy stomach walls, pools of digestive juice, and chunks of various dead things. Still, it's nice to know my words are being read. Now if only I could devise a means of signaling someone on the outside as to which dragon I'm in. There are so many around, you know. Hard to keep track. And I can't expect someone to go around slicing up every dragon until they find me. It's illegal.

I came upon something resembling a hammock today. I have no idea how it got here, but it looked comfy so I rested in it. I couldn't help but wonder why the dragon would eat a hammock made of skins from dead animals, which it had also eaten. Perhaps it made the hammock for me and then consumed it? That would be very courteous. Further investigation is necessary.

I'm beginning to wonder why I haven't melted away yet. Perhaps those blessings I received from the Elves really are working after all! I knew saving their Princess was a good idea.

-Guy.IAD