None of the village’s standing structures

w

ere stable enough to house the group for the night besides the historical temple. Nadalia and Tristi, ho

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ever, forbade any of their companions from sleeping in the temple for fear that in its

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eakened state – despite its relative stability &

Lauren woke up to the sound of falling rain. She opened her eyes and smiled at the large belly she sported, containing Nadalia in her womb and Strea in her intestines – or her stomach, depending on how much Strea moved during Lauren’s sleep. On the far side of the room, droplets of water dripped down from the ceiling, a lucky leak for such an old building. Lauren rubbed her stomach with her right hand. She had no idea if it was morning or night, still, but she did feel well rested. L

Lauren and Nadalia

w

ere tribbing. Three days had passed since Lauren and her companions’ skirmish at Vicgi. They had encountered no Destroyer as they trekked to

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ards Grecinma, including Ginny. Up until the end of the second day, Strea had made remark after remark about ho

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Ginny

Nadalia, Tristi and Chelsea let loose a barrage of lightning disks, ice clusters and fire spears, respectively, at Thebe. Thebe laughed as the lightning and fire hit her body, causing her zero harm. She deflected and sliced Tristi’s ice clusters with her cutlass. She flapped her wings and zipped into the air while the magic users continued their assault. Thebe flew towards the travelers and quit her flapping, going into a descent. Thebe spread her legs apart as she dropped with a grin.

Lauren woke up from her nap and found that she was still in Rita’s womb. Whether she was still in Strea’s womb as well was a fact she did not know. Lauren would not have felt the telltale sensation of changing size in her sleep. Melody, laying beneath her, yawned and stretched. Lauren tilted her head as far back as she could against Melody’s chest to look up at the Aquakin’s face, discovering that she, too, had fallen asleep. Lauren poked Melody in the cheek

Inside the bowels of Strea, Lauren, Melody and Chelsea prepared themselves to delve deep into the Pawkin’s digestive system. Lauren tapped the intestinal lining and quit Strea’s digesting process,

just to make sure.

Melody had her hands on her hips and stared far into the intestines. Chelsea stretched.






“Weird b

“Are you also the Goddess of Luck, as well as Death and Hunger and Humans?” asked Strea as they hiked through the Blue Forest. “Because whenever you’re around, we always seem to stumble upon the right thing we need to fix our situations.”






“Most of the time,” said Nadalia.

“You got that sword, right?” said Strea. “Stab the fuck out of him.”






“Strea, we’ve already had this conversation,” retorted Lauren.






“I know, I know. Location, and all that.”

Lauren awoke from her nap with a yawn. She glanced at Nadalia, who held Lauren’s waist with a steel grip. Nadalia had yet to notice that Lauren had woken. She stared straight ahead as Ginny flew them towards the Blue Forest. Lauren kissed Nadalia on the cheek to signal to the knight that she was awake. Nadalia blushed and turned her head towards Lauren.






“Thanks for holding me,”

“This is a really powerful enchantment,” said Nadalia, examining Chelsea’s sword.






“It did slice through, like, half the forest and take down a Destroyer in one swing,” said Lauren.






“Let me see that, Nadalia,” said Melody. Nadalia tossed the sword over to

Lauren, yanked into the womb of the Giantess by an unseen entity, fell to her knees. She shook off the shock and raised her head to look at the one who stole her into the womb

, after making her vision normal

. The first Amazon that Lauren had seen since she met Rita patted her stomach in front of Lauren. Unlike the

which she inhabited, the Amazon was in excellent physical condition, as muscular a

Lauren had just decided to take a nap when the Hippocampus spat them up. She deposited them on a wooden dock

on their knees

. Torches lined the dock, keeping it well lit.

Soldiers

in varying levels of armored protection marched down the dock, each of them displaying the volcanic emblem on tunics, armbands, capes or helmets. The Featherkin who had given the Hippoc

When Lauren finished kissing Nadalia, she wandered over to where the Druid had dropped her clothes. As she outfitted herself, Strea helped Rita get to her feet. Valentina lay ten paces away, her middle expanded.






“I knew our gracious goddess would be able to save us,” said Tristi.






&ld

During Lauren’s sleep, nightmares overtook a once dreamless rest – nightmares concerning her friends. Lauren felt a pressure on her chest, and she awoke panicked, sweat slicking her brow. The moon was just beginning its descent, and Melody sat twenty paces away on watch duty, scraping two of the bone fragments together.

Lauren made herself as comfortable as possible once she calmed down and pressed herself closer

in

Lauren and company spent the rest of the morning reaching the cave that lead to Axzcleminth’s

S

hrine. As Lauren had seen from her plateau view, a great number of Giant and Giantess corpses were congregated around the entrance, so their pace was slowed due to the extra navigation required to get through and around the dense amount of rickety, weighty bones. The Giant skeletons were posing in all manners. Some were reaching

The seven travelers were led across the foothills by Rita for the next two hours. Lauren was steeling herself to console a disappointed Rita when, in the distance, the top of a large tent poked out of the hills. Everyone’s eyes lit up in wonder and disbelief. It was Rita’s turn to run for her home, and as she had the longest gait, the others were left in her wake.






“Fuck, I love

The seven travelers took time to recuperate after their near-disastrous encounter with Hierak. Out of the seven of them, Valentina was the only one to have lost her clothes, a lucky break for Lauren’s funds, which she shared with Nadalia, since the knight had kept most of what she had been told to discard during their first night in the Burning Realm.

Lauren let Valentina borrow her cloak until they could find real, better clothes for her.

While the group of seven walked through the winding passages of the Sleeping Underbelly, Lauren surveyed Tristi’s appearance, a task made easier by Tristi’s unwavering position of walking by Lauren’s side, which caused, Lauren noticed, a

n expression of mild irritation on Nadalia’s face

as Tristi had chosen to walk on the knight’s preferred side.

Tristi had ash blond

“The what now?” said Valentina.






“The Sleeping Underbelly,” repeated Lauren. “The Great Cave. There are lots of names for her.”




“’Her?’”






“I like to call he

Lauren hopped into the small intestine. Melody followed close behind her.

Melody had little room to stand and had to duck her head. Lauren loosed the lid of the ceramic jar in case they needed quick access to it. When she moved the lid, a familiar smell wafted up to her nose. She looked down at the jar and removed the lid completely. Her eyebrows went up.






&ldquo

While the wooden cart rolled down an unseen path, Lauren questioned her friends over the preceding events after Nadalia and she had ran into the city.






“I apologize for running ahead and leaving you all behind,” said Nadalia. “I can see now that was a mistake. We should have consolidated our attacks.”

Lauren and Nadalia hugged.






Since they were no longer in any apparent danger, Lauren, Nadalia, Rita, Strea, Melody, and Valentina took the time to catch their breath. When Lauren and Nadalia finished hugging, Lauren wandered over to the pile of their belongings. She retrieved her original blue shirt and brown hooded cloak to go with her original trousers she had put back on during the train ride.