As an aspiring mercenary traveling all across the many titans of Alrest, there was hardly ever a dull moment for you. Whether it was taking down some fearsome monster by the skin of your teeth, or finding yourself at the behest of a group of blade-toting bandits only to swiftly dispatch them when they least expect it, the world and all the titans that swam or waded through the Cloud Sea presented countless opportunities for quests and adventures. One day, an opportunity like no other presented itself to you. Posted on Torigoth’s notice board, right next to the shredded remains of what looked to be a wanted poster, was a pretty standard-looking quest.
“Traveling Merchant Smalili looking for strong strong mercenary friend to help escort very fragile shipment of ether crystals from Torigoth to base of Sauros’s bed. Smalili will reward generous sum upon completion, bonus if friend not ask too many questions.” The quest notice read. Now typically, something like this would trigger a whole load of red flags, but after looking at the eye-opening 150,000 gold up for grabs as a reward, it would’ve been a shame to pass up the opportunity. Grabbing some essential supplies and gathering your gear, you accepted the quest without a second thought and rented a room at Coedwig Inn to await the merchant. Once the sun had risen, you grabbed all your stuff and headed towards the agreed-upon area near Torigoth's port. Standing near an armu that had a bunch of crates strapped to its body was the merchant himself. A fairly eccentric-looking nopon with thick goggles and a bright yellow coat.
"Meh Meh! Friend arrive just on time! And friend look very strong too! If friend as strong as looks then transport should be no problem!" The nopon exclaimed, bouncing up and down in excitement. From the quest posting alone, you never would've expected such an excitable fur-ball. No longer worried about the validity of the job, you vigilantly escorted the merchant and the cargo-carrying armu out of Torigoth and into the vast plains of Gormott. Even without the help of a blade, many of the monsters around this area were easy enough to deal with, but Sauros's bed was a different story. Fearing the safety of the supposedly fragile cargo, you decided to risk your bonus pay and ask a question.
"Is this armu OK to go so near Sauros's Bed? There are some pretty scary monsters in that area." You asked, gliding your hand across its leathery scales.
"Mehmeh? Friend not need worry! Smalili pulled out all the stops for transport. Smalili rented toughest armu money can buy, not easily scared by big dum dum monsters like cheaper armu." Smalili said pridefully. "Though, many big scary dinos near Sauros's Bed may cause many problems. Smalili not want armu to get eaten up like tasty sausage, so friend may have to carry crate of ether crystals to destination. No need for worry though, should only be short walk."
Pretty confident about how things were going, you and Smalili arrived at Sauros's bed, and thankfully the merchant was telling the truth. Stopping the armu a couple of feet away from a small bed of grass, Smalili instructed you to quickly grab the crates of ether crystal and place them down on the grass. With four crates in total, all being relatively light, you had no problems with lifting and setting them down at the destination well that is until the fourth crate. Unlike the other three, the lid of the crate wasn’t properly sealed. As you went to drop it down onto the grass, the impact of it hitting the ground shot up a cloud of yellow ether dust directly into your face, body, and gear. Fanning away the dust and brushing it off your clothes, you coughed erratically while backing away from the dust cloud.
“Mehmehmeh?! Is friend ok? Smalili sorry. Must have not properly checked crate after ardanian border inspection. Anyway, friend should hurry and hide! Big dino come any minute now.” Smalili yelled, waving his… wing-ear thing(?) at you. Taking on a sauros was not in the cards for you today, and with little hesitation, you ran back to Smalili and the armu and waited for whatever the nopon merchant was planning.
“Take this dum dum dino!!!” Smalili yelled, waiting for the sauros to inspect the crates before slamming a button that was hidden in his yellow coat. In an instant, the crates exploded in a massive cloud of ether particles and dust. It was such a shock that you could barely comprehend what had just happened. You wanted to confront Smalili about having you carry what looked to be bombs without telling you, but as the dust cleared the results were astonishing. What once was a sauros the size of a building was essentially a small lizard barely the size of a shrub. You knew about how strange ether was but had you had no idea it could be used for shrinking down monsters. Regardless, this also worried you for another reason.
"Wait, will I be OK? I got some of that stuff on me earlier!" You asked, fearfully.
"Meh? Strange shrinky shrinky ether only works on big dum dum monsters. Friend alright… probably! Anyway, Smalili thanks friend for helping escort! Here agreed upon amount plus bonus!" While you were slightly skeptical, the fact that you hadn't shrunken at all and the money you had received had imbued you with a fair bit of confidence.
After a hike back to Torigoth you bid farewell to the strange nopon merchant and went back to your room in the inn. Unbeknownst to you, as you drifted off to sleep a strange sensation had caused you to toss and turn in your sleep. When you woke up you didn't really notice anything strange, but the more you looked around, the more things began to get weirder and weirder. The pillows were the size of Ardanian titan warships and the blanket you were standing on looked like a vast sea, with the folds looking like frozen waves. You were less than an inch tall and extremely confused. And then it all clicked. It was that strange ether dust, there was no doubt about it. 'Damn that nopon and his ask few questions rule.' You thought to yourself not knowing how long you'd be shrunken in this state. Being optimistic about the effect wearing off, you found it easy enough to calm yourself down. Thinking that even if it took a good while, no one would enter your room since all your mercenary gear was still there… and then you remembered that the dust didn’t only get on you.
"Crap!" Right on cue, the door swung open.
“Hm? I guess he must have left when I wasn’t looking.” Peering through, was the owner of the inn. Inspecting the room briefly, she saw that none of your belongings were there and shrugged before making the room available to rent. The safety of a rented room had vanished. Knowing that anyone could rent out the room you’re in and unknowingly harm you made the situation a lot more dangerous and you quickly sought to get off the bed and towards a safer location before some other person rented the room. However as you ventured across the vast and soft blanket, you quickly ran into a big problem. “How am I supposed to get down?” You asked yourself staring off the edge of the bed.
Still under the belief that a fall like that would kill you, jumping down onto the floor didn’t seem like the best idea, not to mention how dangerous being on the floor with no way of going back up would be. Perishing the thought, you continued walking along the edge of the bed for what felt like hours, apathetically passing by bits of lint and wading through the soft blanket’s fabric. You had no idea how much time had passed, but you could see that you were approaching the foot of the bed and the dresser that was right next to it. Exhausted from your long hike across the blanket, you decided it was best just to take a break. Falling back onto the soft blanket you stared up at the ceiling slowly regretting ever helping that shady nopon. Accidentally almost drifting to sleep, you were shocked awake by the sound of the opening. Quickly shaking off that sudden sleepiness, you booked it to the foot of the bed before seeing the person entering the room. In the distance, you could hear the distant yawn of a Gormotti woman, followed by the door slamming shut. Running as hard as you could towards the dresser near the foot of the bed, your plan was cut short as a bag came flying towards you, impacting the bed and causing a shockwave that sent you half across the bed. It was good to know that you weren't crushed, but you were very uncertain about your future now that someone was renting the room.
Clothed in a feline-hooded yellow one-piece jumpsuit, was a young Gormotti girl with silver hair and amber eyes. She looked extremely exhausted. Sweat rolling down her forehead and slightly staining her outfit, it was safe to assume she just got back from doing some kind of work. She had the aura of a driver and looked like one too, so she was probably out fighting monsters or something. Nevertheless, an exhausted person meant the bed was undoubtedly going to be in use and that was the last thing you wanted. To stop yourself from wasting any more time, you stopped gawking at the titan-sized driver and continued on your way to the dresser. Walking around her massive bag seemed like it would be pretty challenging but you didn't think it would take that long, the real problem revealed itself shortly.
"Damn! What the hell is it with this weather? It was hot when those guys wanted to camp out in the middle of nowhere and it's even hotter now. If only I was back in Mor Ardain, I could kill for a dip in a hot spring right about now." She sighed, sitting down on the bed. While the impact wasn't as strong as the bag the indentation caused by the girl made things a little difficult. Unable to get a proper footing, you slid down the slope of the indent causing you to slam your body against the slightly moist fabric of the driver girl's jumpsuit. Pushing yourself away from her thigh, you try to regain your footing and climb back up the slope, but your efforts are in vain as it was way too steep for you to climb back up. If the situation wasn't so perilous you might have felt a tinge of embarrassment at being so close to a girl's thigh like this. You didn't have long to think about it though as she started to move again. Standing up for a brief second to readjust herself, you were caught off guard and found yourself tripping and falling into the imprint her butt had made on the bed sheet. After that brief second, before you even had time to think about running away, she had planted her butt back down onto the bed, sealing you between the soft bed and the extremely heavy mass of her body.
You could hardly breathe and it was extremely dark. The only light you could see was the periodic glow of the outside as the colossal girl moved her butt slightly, and even then those bursts of light were more of a worrying reminder as each movement led to you sinking further underneath her bum. On the bright side, you were rather surprised to see how your body was completely fine under the crushing weight. It seemed like you were now made of much sturdier stuff, or at least you hoped you were. At first, the pressure of her butt was the most of your worries, but very quickly did you realize just how hot it was under her. With her size amplifying her body heat and all the physically demanding activities she had done out in the hot weather, you felt as if you had been crushed under a sauna. The heat and humidity made you want to struggle, but no matter how hard you tried, the Gormotti girl's butt pressed down on you so hard that you could barely move your limbs. The stuffy air made it harder to breathe, but you could just about find the strength to not suffocate as you desperately attempted to wiggle out from under her. This effort was mostly in vain as every minuscule movement from the titan-sized cat lady sitting on top of you more or less reset your progress. One step forward, ten steps back. Nevertheless, you pushed forwards stopping at nothing. Exhausted and drenched in a mix of your and the Gormotti girl’s sweat. Every now and then you could see the like of day shine through the fabric of her jumpsuit and just when you felt your body begin to give out, hope shined down upon you. A lot of the pressure was lifted off of you as the giant girl leaned back. The sound of her yawn echoed throughout the room and you were finally able to make out from underneath her. Moving away from the girl, you found a safer spot on the bed to catch your breath. Wiping the sweat off your brow, you looked toward one of the clocks in the room and despaired. Despite thinking that your struggle to get out from underneath her took hours, in reality only 5 minutes had passed. You couldn’t tell if your perception of time was different due to your size, or if it was the stress of the situation that had caused it to feel so excruciatingly long. Maybe it was a mix of both. Trying your best to forget the trauma of the past few minutes you continued towards your previous destination at the end of the bed. In the face of all your hopes that you wouldn’t have to deal with a similar situation, you’d soon find yourself facing yet another difficult obstacle.
“Mmmmmm…” The girl yawned again. “After muckin’ about in the middle of nowhere it sure is nice to be in a nice… soft… bed.” Sounding quite sleepy, you heard the distant impacts of her boots hitting the floor and felt earthquake-like tremors spread throughout the entire bed as she went to lay down on her back. The foot of the bed was no longer as safe as you’d hoped it to be as you soon found yourself in between a massive valley. With both her legs blocking the left and the right of you and her feet more or less blocking the only exit you were practically trapped. Her legs were too high to climb which left you with only one option: squeezing your way through her crossed feet. Gritting your teeth, you ventured onward through the valley between her legs. With each step towards her feet, you could feel the humidity get stronger and stronger. It didn’t take long for the smell to kick in either. While they’re great for adventuring and combat, boots like the ones she was wearing didn’t exactly provide much in the field of breathability and it showed. You hadn’t even gotten that close to them and it already felt like you were back out in the hot sun, and as you got even closer, it started to feel more like the arid wastes of Mor Ardain. Almost choking on the oppressive atmosphere you were now close enough to see every drop of the girl’s foot sweat in great detail. While the size of each drop varied, almost all of the droplets were as tall, if not taller than you. Being the size of and more insignificant than a drop of sweat did not help your confidence as you tried to find the best place to squeeze through. Eyeing up her feet from afar, you decided that it’d be best to squeeze through the space between both her heels. It wouldn’t be pleasant but at least it wasn’t too daunting of a task.
Wrapping your shirt around your nose, you made your way towards that area. It felt as if you had just entered an entirely new world. The atmosphere was so thick and overpowering with an odor so strong that not even your shirt could block the smell. Despite it being super hot and humid, you could tell that a majority of the sweat perspiring onto your body was not your own, but the sweaty air condensing on you. As much as you wanted to calm yourself down, taking a deep breath would be a foolish error. Forced to fearfully approach her two colossal heels you instinctually looked up to gain a sense of size. Basking in the shadow of her two feet, the sweaty pale appendages stretched high into the heavens taller than any tree or building you’ve ever seen (aside from the world tree, though you’d imagine that if you were on the floor and the girl was standing up she’d just about reach the same heights). As your luck would have it things would, yet again, not go your way. A slightly sleepy groan echoed from the other side of the bed and things began to shake again. You watched on in horror as the girl’s feet began to move. Not wanting to get buried underneath either of them, you ran as fast as you could. The Gormotti girl’s right foot shifted from upright to on its side. Most likely trying to scratch an itch, her foot rubbed against the side of her calf. Luckily you just about avoided her foot, but as you backed away you became skeptical about whether or not that was a blessing or a curse.
Instead of having to simply squeeze on through her two heels, a much more prominent obstacle presented itself before you. With her foot on its side and pressed up against her calf, you were now forced to squeeze through the entire length of her right foot. What would have taken less than a minute, had now become an insurmountable task and a very disgusting one at that. You squirmed just thinking about having her sweaty foot pushed up against your back as slowly shimmied against it to escape. The smell was already bad enough from far away, and you could only imagine how it would be from that close. "Could you even endure the entire length of her foot?" You asked yourself. With no other choice you took off your shirt and wrapped it over your mouth and nose to form a make-shift gas mask, then made your approach. Even on its side, her heel was much taller than you and the grooves and wrinkles that lined her foot were almost big enough to fit your arm or head into, though you would never even dream of confirming that for yourself. Reluctantly eyeing up the gap between her heel and calf, you took your last breath of relatively fresh air and squeezed on in.
The horror struck immediately. Forget being in a completely new atmosphere, the moment you were sandwiched between her calf and foot was the moment you stepped into an entirely new world. Much like spelunking, you found yourself in a dark and cramped area, but unlike spelunking, that dark area was unintentionally trying to kill you. The rank odor was a league above overpowering and perspiration dripped down her foot and onto the poor bedsheet below like meteors of sweat. You stuck closer to her calf as to avoid touching her foot, but every breath actively burned both your lungs and your soul. The makeshift “gas mask” did less than nothing to mitigate the odor and soon it would make this already awful predicament a whole lot worse. Slowly and viciously tortured by her foot odor alone, you moved along the narrowness of her foot unaware of how much progress you made. As you shimmied on through, something massive splashed against you. A droplet of sweat dripped down onto you, drenching your entire body in her malodorous perspiration. While this was bad enough on its own, that “gas mask” you had wrapped around your face became completely soaked as well. Pressing directly against your mouth and nose, the foot sweat-soaked shirt filled your lungs and coated the inside of your mouth with pure foot sweat. The taste and smell were agonizing. In a panic, you thrashed about trying your hardest to tear the shirt off your face before you were waterboarded by her sweat. It was only until after did you realize how bad of a decision this was. Your thrashing caused you to bump into the fleshy and sweat-covered wall that was her foot, coating you in even more of the Gormotti girl’s perspiration, and while you eventually succeeded in removing the shirt off your face, your panic had created some slight discomfort for the sleeping cat lady. This slight discomfort resulted in a minor motion that created a major problem for you. Slightly disturbed by your presence, the girl’s foot inched closer to her calf, sealing the already minuscule gap and pinning you between her calf and her foot.
You were utterly trapped. Unable to turn around you were stuck facing the massive wall that was her foot. Foot odor quickly filled the tiny amount of space you had and sweat dripped down onto your face and body constantly. You tried your hardest to keep your mouth shut and hold your breath in, but your resolve eventually gave out and the result was a lot worse than if you hadn't held your breath in at all. A tsunami of odor flooded your lungs and a droplet of sweat forced its way into your mouth filling it with a putrid taste. You tried your hardest to spit it out but as more and more sweat flooded in, you had no choice but to swallow. The salty liquid slid down your throat filling you with an unimaginable sense of dread. Mortified and disgusted, the horrible experience had finally become too much for you and your consciousness quickly faded.
-TO BE CONTINUED-