Chapter 3: The Job

Veezla was big.

It was one thing to know that someone was miles tall, but it was another to actually be up close to such a being. Even standing hundreds of feet away in that fungus-lit cave, they could mostly make out just her face. It loomed larger than most any building in even the grandest city-state. From her nostrils and gently-opened lips, hot breath whisked by them.

Even such gentle, sleeping breaths proved enough to ruffle their clothes. All of the party stared in awe at it for a bit, till Grome spoke up.

“Pretty, huhuh.”

The other three turned to the orc, but didn’t exactly disagree. Veezla’s face didn’t seem to have a single blemish or slight upon it, even at such an immense scale where every minor imperfection would be plain to see.

Her skin was a light shade of purple, like lilacs. She was sleeping, eyes shut, with her head resting on one arm and her hair cascading over her shoulders and said-arm to rest at the cave floor. Each strand of that silver-white hair was thick as a rope to the adventurers.

Veezla looked young, the face one of a young adult and not some gigantic being thousands of years old. It was easy to remember she was a monster though. One needed only to look at the top of her head, where two dark-gray horns jutted out. Each one was like a small hill. Furthermore, one could see her feminine fingers topped with curved, claw-like black nails.

Green dragon-like wings adorned her back, and Laddleplug scribbled down a note to think about how exactly those could suffice for flight.

At her waist was a smattering of dark-purple scales, which transitioned to a fully scaled snake-like tail for her lower body. It was by far the most monstrous feature of the titaness, and it was so long that it was impossible for the four to see that gigantic limb in ts entirety. Still, they could barely make out that the underbelly of the tail was a shade of ivory white.

“Wow...” spoke Thistle. “Her skin isn’t too far off from your own, Araffy.”

The dark elf scoffed. “It’s Arafiel, and hers is far lighter and purpler. I hope you’re not saying I’m a monster.”

“Oh no I’d never.”, said Thistle. “But, you have to admit the hair’s the same. She’s got pointed ears too.”

Arafiel ran her fingers through her own white locks. Hers were a tad duller, as she wasn’t a titaness supposedly made by the gods to perfection. Hers was also cut shorter, as long hair was a liability in the rogue’s eyes.

“Fair enough.”, said Arafiel. “But none of this matters. On with the plan. I don’t think the grappling hooks will be necessary now, we can simply climb up using her hair.”

“Duhhh won’t that wake her?”, said Grome.

“Oh wow, a good question for once.”, spoke Thistle.

“I don’t think so.”, spoke Laddleplug. “That dwarven city lived hundreds of years without waking her, a slight tug on those strands will go unnoticed.”

“Exactly.”, said Arafiel. “Now, time to go over the plan.”

She cleared her throat. She spoke while they moved towards where a lot of those hair strands meant the floor.

“Laddleplug will cast his anti-acid spell on us, which should protect us from her digestive system. It only lasts 8 hours though, so we need to move fast in there without dallying. We’ll climb her up hair and enter her mouth and work our way down her throat, through her stomach, and to that tail stomach she’s supposed to have. Once there, we nab the orb from the city ruins, then Laddleplug teleports us back on the outside.”

“Ah, you are forgetting something.”, said the gnome.

Arafiel sighed.

“Of course, we will take any people still surviving inside with us to rescue them, but I really doubt anyone could be alive. It’s been weeks, how slow could her digestive system really be?”

“Hold on.”, said Thistle. “Why can’t we just teleport inside her?”

Laddleplug hopped off Grome’s back to the floor. Her pulled some chalk out of his satchel and started etching a fancy looking pattern into the stone floor. He spoke.

“That’s because teleportation isn’t precise without a circle to teleport to. You need precise configurations of sigils. Otherwise, there are margins of error. We can’t see inside her from here, so if we tried to teleport inside her tail-stomach, we could very easily misfire and end up somewhere between her tail muscles instead. An idle movement from the titaness there would crush us, and whatever cavity we could end up in might be too small for me to make the movements of the spell. We’d be trapped or dead in most cases; it’d be too risky.”

“Hmm I see.”

Everyone waited for Laddleplug to finish the runic circle he was drawing.

“There, now once we’re inside, we can teleport to this very spot with the orb and any survivors. Then, we just walk on out.”

“Wait ok, now hold on, why didn’t we draw the circle outside the mountain so we don’t have to walk all the way back out.”, said Thistle.

Laddleplug and Arafiel each raised a hand to answer, looked at each other and blinked a few times.

“We... probably should have.”, said Laddleplug.

“But it shouldn’t matter, she won’t wake up and it won’t be an issue. Now c’mon, let’s climb.”, said Arafiel.

“Climb, ha!”, scoffed Thistle. “I’ll be taking a faster route. I’ll meet you on the titan’s tongue. Come on now Laddleplug, let’s go.”

“What?”, spoke the gnome.

Thistle clapped her hands together and a puff of grass shook from her form. Brown feathers sprouted from her skin and, in less than a second, her and her belongings shifted into the form of a large owl, easily bigger than a human. She looked to the gnome and made an expression as similar to a smile as any giant owl could.

She hopped his way.

“No no, I’m fine I can climb really I-”

Thistle placed a bird foot on the gnome’s back and curled her talons. She flapped her broad wings and flew off and up towards Veezla’s mouth.

Being so close to the titaness was quite the thrill if the gnome wizard’s screaming was anything to go by. An exhale from those ginormous purple-pinkish lips nearly blew Thistle off course, but in her giant owl form, she possessed enough strength to flap right through the gale and enter the titaness’s maw.

Meanwhile, Arafiel grumbled and got to climbing, with Grome right behind her. The stands were easy enough to grab and clamber on, though they were far smoother than a hempen rope their size. Grome took awhile to get a hang of it, near falling once, but pretty soon he was racing Arafiel up the locks.

The barbarian took the lead and reached the face of Veezla first.

“Careful!”, said the drow. “Let me go first big guy observe.”

Arafiel took hold of one of the strands and started swinging on it. Faster and faster she swung, careful not to fall. Veezla was so big that the fall from that strand would be over 200ft, even with her head tilted on her side and close to the ground.

The drow heard some enthusiastic and baritone “wheeee!”s from behind and noticed Grome had already gotten the idea.

She shook her head, defeated. “I didn’t say go yet Grome!”, she hollered. Then, when the time was right, she swing the hair strand close to those lips and let go. She flew through the little opening in the mouth to plop on the tongue.

Grome squished down on the crimson muscle shortly after, splattering some saliva on her, Thistle, and Laddleplug. The druid had since transformed back into her normal self.

Arafiel brushed some spit off herself, while Thistle just sort of shook herself dry like a dog. Laddleplug seemed too fascinated by the maw to even notice.

All of them looked to the back of the throat. It was dark, so Arafiel conjured her light orb again and let it hover by her shoulder. It was bright enough to illuminate the whole maw, albeit dimly. A hard palate hung over head, with strands of saliva dangling like vines and plopping around the party. Perfectly white teeth loomed like hills, with the front ones sharp as any animal’s fangs. The tongue under them didn’t stir, thankfully, but its bumpy surface squished beneath their steps.

The group made their way a tad closer to the throat, where a large uvula loomed ominously.

“This is what a mouth looks like up close eh? Ok, let’s head down.”, said Thistle.

“Wait!”, said Arafiel. “We’re forgetting something. Laddleplug.”

“Hmm?”, said the gnome. He was busy scribbling notes and drawings onto parchment again, stopping only to make sure not to get the scroll wet with spittle.

“The anti-acid coating, we should've done it before climbing. Do it now so we don’t digest.”

“Ah yes! Sorry I forgot myself. Let’s see.”

The gnome pulled a tome out of his satchel and hurriedly flipped through the pages.

“Where is it, where is it.”

“Say, is saliva, uhh, acidic Arafeel.”, said Grome.

“No, or, hmm, is it? That’s a good point. What’s taking so long.”, said Arafiel.

“I’m working I just-”

A bit of saliva landed hundreds of feet away on the side of the titaness’s tongue. A bit of spit splattered off from the impact to spritz the party. In particular, it wet the page of the spell book Laddleplug was looking at, making it near illegible. He gasped.

“Is there a problem?” asked an impatient Arafiel. She tapped her black boots against the tongue.

“Oh no, the page just got wet, but I remember the spell well enough. Alright, everyone huddle up.”

Laddleplug squinted at the page one more time. Then, he dried the book on his robe best he could, slammed it shut, and put it back in his satchel. He waved her short arms in wild gesticulations, and spoke magic words that made his white beard flutter. A flash of yellow light covered the four, glimmered on their skin a bit, before fading away.

“There we go. Should last 8 hours, even should I die.”, spoke Laddleplug.

“Well, that won’t happen on my watch.”, spoke Arafiel.

“Yeah!” shouted Grome in agreement.

“Alright, great. Now, let’s get swallowed yeah!”, said Thistle.

The four of them moved to the back of the tongue. It was another journey of several hundred feet, but in time they stood at the very back of it and gazed down at a pitch dark gullet.

“This is it, who’s brave enough to jump fir-”, spoke Thistle, but she was interrupted by a loud “Wheeeee!” from Grome who just jumped right down. That triggered some sort of swallowing reflex, as the tongue tilted and all four of them fell down right after him, far, far less prepared.