Part 1: IntroductionThe
first thing Tyus regained was his sense of touch. His skin prickled
over and over again as rhythmic pulses passed across it. At first he
thought they were from his own heart beating; but, as his mind
cleared, the truth became progressively clearer.His
surroundings were dark – a human would have seen very little to
nothing at all. But Tyus was a drow, a dark elf whose kind had spent
generations living in the lightless world of the underground. His
keen red eyes could pic

The groans and gurgles grew louder
as Tyus moved further down the wider tunnel. As far as he could tell,
Christina had neutralized her digestive system. But her body didn’t
seem to know that. From the noise it was making, the naga was
seemingly trying to dissolve a multi-course meal all around him.But
just as the noise began to feel deafening, Tyus seemed to move past
the worst of it. From that point on, the further he went, the more
quiet his surroundings became. At length the angry pops and

Tyus had come to expect many things
from a monster’s belly – ranging from the unpleasant thoughts of
digestion to the even less appetizing notion of defecation. But there
were also things he sincerely expected not to find. Among those
aforementioned anomalies was a gentle breeze wafting towards him from
the depths of the naga.At first, his more childish side made
him giggle at the thought of having entered a gas pocket. But when he
quieted down he heard it: the sounds of rhythmic intakes and

As Tyus began his trek around the
acid lake, he started noticing evidence of something truly
extraordinary: tides. Certain patches of flesh were exposed but dyed
darker colors, evidence they were being eroded by the stomach’s
juices. If the elf was correct, that would put the stomach at low
tide. At high tide the path would be much more narrow – and the
“land” bridge connecting the island to the rest of the naga’s
body would disappear completely.There was no way of knowing
exactly how

Tyus should have been expecting to
see life. He was literally inside another living creature. But the
elf was expecting cells, and veins, and organs.On the island
he found something very different: flowers. They seemed like the ones
that grew in the natural world: the reds of asters, the yellows of
daffodils, and the whites of lilies all shone through the dim light
of Christina’s belly. They needed no soil, sprouting directly from
the tender flesh beneath them. In places they were accompanied

Tyus had lived in the dark elven
city of Tak for nearly a century – the whole of his adolescence, in
human terms. There he had become accustomed to many sounds: the
clashing of blades, the fiery crackles of magic, and the cries of the
wounded among other things. But one particular noise he’d learned
well was that of the forge as a blacksmith hammered away on his metal
creations.That sound was audible over the wind as he neared
the ground caves. Two openings readily presented themselves to hi

Tyus was exhausted by the time he
finally reached the top of the column. The ground had fallen away
completely, left to the enigmatic shadows on the edge of his line of
sight. In its place, the ceiling of the naga’s second stomach was
readily visible – one covered in tiny holes that constantly let the
winds in and out.Of course, those openings were not the ones
the elf was most concerned with. At the top of the column were two
cave-like entrances: one on the left, another on the right. Deep

“Hello?” Tyus called
tentatively, stepping into the larger cave. He was met with no reply;
and, becoming progressively unsettled, he moved further into the dark
chamber.“Hello?” he asked again.Something moved
in front of the entrance – something that blotted out the light
that came from beyond. Tyus froze, his blood turning to icicles in
his veins. Like a shifting glacier he turned to face whatever lay
behind him, hands reaching down to the hilts of his swords.He
couldn’t make out th

While the entrance was small, the
“room” beyond opened up considerably – to the point that it
could have held someone two, maybe three hundred feet tall. Tyus was
worried at first. But that anxiety quickly subsided as he comforted
himself with one simple fact: nothing that large could have fit
through the entrance.And that meant whatever lived there
wasn’t big enough to eat him.“Hello?” he called,
knocking a knuckle against one wall. He shouldn’t have bothered:
Christina’s skin d

Tyus had lived a considerable
portion of his life underground. That was, after all, the way of his
people. But walking through the forest made him feel as if he had
been missing a crucial part of the world. Meandering beneath the
trees, following the shores of the lazily gurgling brook, he realized
there was a peacefulness captured in the place. Perhaps that was why
his people were too chaotic and violent: they just didn’t have the
natural beauty to balance out their emotions.Though the
deeper

Tyus would have liked to say that
climbing the hill provided him with a good view. But that implied the
sights were good too. True, he could see a lot of the “landscape”
around him… but the landscape was more weird than scenic.The
fleshy hill stretched up above the small forest and flower meadow.
Beyond those Tyus could see the green “waters” of the naga’s
stomach lake and the shoreline beyond. But they only lasted so long
as he remained on the slopes; the higher he climbed on the
mo

The left hand cave was warm. Tyus
could feel the heat emanating from it as he drew nearer. He’d
experienced a similar phenomenon when entering the forges of his
homeland. It only made him more certain his initial hunch had been
correct.There was a blacksmith inside the cave.The
chamber beyond the entrance was vast. The organic walls loomed high
overhead and stretched far to all sides, forming a vaguely dome-like
structure. In the center of the room was a massive brazier – though
its flames l

It was impossible to tell what lay
beyond the mouth of the right hand cave. Shadows and gloom enclosed
the area completely. He wasn’t sure if he was walking into a cavity
the size of a small closet or a chamber vast enough to house a small
city. All he had were the squishing sounds of his footfalls as he
tread across the living floor.“Hello?” he called, his
voice hoarse and nervously quiet.The flashes of light and
distant sounds of hammering echoed from the adjacent cavern, drowning
out hi

Anything he encountered would want
to eat him. But Tyus wasn’t scared, looking at the smaller of the
cave openings. Whatever lived in the cavern beyond couldn’t eat
him. It couldn’t have been larger than he was, after
all.Confidently he strode forward, ducking beneath the low
entryway and emerging in a cozy little cave no larger than an average
sized room. The place had all the basic amenities: a tiny kitchen, a
small bed, and even a miniature living area. It all fit nicely into
the otherw

Power came with size. Tyus knew
that, having dealt with dragons all his life. The power to return him
home would come from a creature that was far greater than what the
smaller cave had to offer. And the vibe he got from the larger cave
opening told him that, were he to need to encounter a larger
creature, that this would be the place to do it.The larger
cave was well lit and well decorated, its interior furnished like a
proper home. Paintings and tapestries hung from the walls, furniture
lay me