Release the moment between moments, let go of the non, snap back to reality. Whoops, here comes gravity. I tumble off the back of the serpent as it writhes around to snap at me. Ignoble, sure, embarrassing, yes, um. Did I have a point with that line of thought? It sounded like there was going to be a but, but there was no but. I glance side to side with a brow furrowed in suspicion before rolling my eyes at my own silliness. My brain is a mess. Anyway, time for one of Reggie Shellcracker’s least successful abilities. Diplomacy.

I call out, “Hey Mister Hare, hopefully you can hear me through the air-holes in your dugout, hoof. One sec. There we go, I was going to kill these three hydra that I’ve located, but I’m not certain how many there are over the few hundred square miles of swamp, and I’ve got a lot of refugees to protect. Hoy, upsy daisy! There we go. I don’t know if you could tell, but I guess I’m a bit of a sorcerer, and we’ve got a few more as powerful or more powerful people among the refugees, but—. Hey, I’m talkin’ here!”

I frontload a significant portion of my internal electrical charge and smash my fist into a nearby hydra snout, delivering the blast, stunning the head thoroughly. Thankfully my attack also ends up dazing the whole creature, buying myself some more time to speak, and to rebuild my electrical charge with internal electrokinesis. Whew, keep it together Reggie. Make sure I never use up enough to incapacitate myself, can’t risk it, gotta keep dodging.

I continue, “Anyway, from what my senses gather, you’re not alone, and there might be a lot of hares in the swamp in general. I also take it that you’re either at war with the frogfolk, or are just their enemies, like everyone else is, by my estimates. I’m also pretty certain that you play the part of the Spirits of the Swamp, whether or not there really are any. I’m going to, oh no you don’t! Down, bad puppy! Huff, that was a bit too close, haven’t fully rebuilt my electrical charge. Sorry, continuing. By my estimates, you must have quite a number of dugouts throughout the swamps. Do you have enough to temporarily shelter the refugees, leapfrogging them a few kilometers a day, towards the west end of the swamps?”

My charge isn’t rebuilding as quickly as the hydra is recovering from being dazed, I can’t keep this up. My eyes swim in their sockets as I run low on electrical charge, barely enough to keep operating my body with internal electrokinesis at moderate levels. I need to rebuild a good bit and start dodging again, without using up any more for a while, so that I can operate near peak efficiency. Or at least, as close as I can get with my current difficulties.

Since I’m trying diplomacy, instead of casting any attack spells, or summoning a coldfire spirit, I recast telekinesis on myself, granting my power the mind to reach out and grasp objects again. I immediately snag my orichalcum plate from where it had sunk to my east, and float it back to me so that I can leap upon it just as three heads snap where I’d just been standing. Up up and away. Sort of. I have to do a bit of a half-arsed loop-de-loop, twisting partway to continue my journey to the west. As I’m leaving the immediate vicinity of where I’d been helped up, I swear I sense a pair of ears perking up through some air holes.

Okay, I might have his attention, maybe he’ll be able to talk to some of his people, and possibly get back to me, if I survive this. Better to plan for the worst case scenario, and hope for the best. I continue surfing off into the swamp at the speed of a sprint, dodging branches and vines, but mostly moving unimpeded thanks to the levitation. It’s funny, I can move the orichalcum plate faster than I can move myself, whether or not I’m standing on the plate. It’s like I don’t add drag or mass or gravity to it. I wonder if I can abuse that somehow? Object still has to be big enough to mostly keep a thing atop it, and light enough for me to lift it with my brain, and strong enough not to snap or crumble under a creature’s weight. It probably won’t be something I can abuse while I’m fighting the hydra sadly.

I just realized one downside to Teuila’s silencing of the hydra, now that it’s wearing off. The splashes of its pursuit, and its bloodcurdling hissing roar were silent. I can now break line of sight if I need to, because it’s that much easier to keep track of by sound, but now I’ve got more problems, the other hydras are converging, alerted and angered. Well, it was going to happen sooner or later, and it’s what I wanted anyway. I double back towards the hydra, and dive bomb it with another strong half-mass electrical charge E S P. After bounding off the hydra with a handspring, I catch myself on my makeshift surfboard after finishing my flip and rotation.

The hydra rattles its heads, discombobulated, and enraged. Yeah, that’s me, Reggie Shellcracker, great at pissing people off. One good thing about it being so loud now though, Teuila will be able to catch up quickly enough. Hopefully there’s no delicate balance to strike here or anything. We should probably slay this hydra, since we toughened it up and helped it grow extra heads. Maybe if the others see this one die, they’ll retreat for now, and give us time to talk a treaty with the harefolk. It’s been a couple of minutes, Te should have been able to check in on Tiktik by now, so hopefully she’ll be homing in on me with an answer as to whether Kitten is able to help or not.

Being a bit reckless, but wanting to test something, I lower myself deep beneath the water of a larger pitfall, and use telekinesis to shove myself down as I stand beneath the orichalcum plate. The serpent lunges in after me, but I chose this particular water pit because it wasn’t wide enough for the hydra to get its entire body into. Alright, I’m sort of safe here. I could just wait it out if I needed to, but that wasn’t the test, this is.

I attempt to lift the orichalcum plate straight up, but it balks at the heft of the hydra. I thought so. I can probably move it parallel to the ground, with almost any amount of weight on it, at whatever altitude I’m able to float it up to, but the more weight of something, whether or not it’s the object itself, the less vertical lift I can manage. I kinda figured, oh well. Now uh, how are we going to get out of here without just waiting around. Oh no. Yep. No. Yep. Huff. I sigh, which would normally be problematic underwater, but thankfully I’m equipped to deal with that, with the neckchain of the ever breathing. So uh, how much cinema, and how many novels on Fakeworld do you think somebody guts a big beast and crawls into it? A lot, I’m sure. Don’t even ask. Just get on with it. Grumpy grumpy.

I’m going to have to be quick. This is probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Like that time you tried to exit Leviathan’s—. Don’t even finish that question. Ugh, I don’t want to think about it. It’s going to be almost exactly the same. I grip corners of my orichalcum plate after lowering it back down to me, aiming the sharpest corner directly upward. And liftoff! I leap with all my might, and aid it with all of my telekinetic thrust, right for the abdomen of the hydra. The beasts belly parts for the mythical metal almost as smooth as butter for a hot knife, and I scrabble my way up into its innards, leaving the plate wedged in its wound. The creature is thrashing wildly now, agitated, enraged, and actually injured.

Great rampaging hydra is a threat to everyone it comes into contact with. Where’s Reggie Shellcracker? Inside the darn thing, safe as a bug in a rug. Hah. Hahahaha. Oy vey. Get it together Reggie. Its internals are fascinating. Hm, if we can find the heart, or hearts, we might be able to end this. Hm, I think it’s going to have a massive multi-valve atria, or something, right at the trunk where all those necks sprout, probably surrounded by the toughest muscles, since it has to hold all those heads aloft. Oof, ow, not a lot of room in here. It’s trying to contract, and thump, and bump into things on the ground to maybe drag the orichalcum out of itself, but it’s only wedging it further inside. I’ve got to be careful, and try to mostly pulverize my way forward, rather than cutting my way through. If I start tearing or cutting stuff, it’s just going to regrow all that much firmer.

Oh, oh oh oh oh. I can practice in here! Thunder shout! Now that I know I can do it, I unleash a thunderclap from my mouth that sends a ripple up the internals of the serpent, extending past where I can sense from within. The hydra shudders, and pauses for a moment, flopping to one side in pain. Huff, huff, that takes a bit out of me. At least I can’t knock myself on my arse inside of this thing when I do it. Alright, find a rhythm, punch, punch, punch, half-charge E S P, shout, punch, punch, punch, half-charge E S P, shout. There we go, making progress. My senses are telling me that this thing is flooding with epinephrine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. It’s afraid now. I would be too if I had something crawling around inside me punching its way through my innards, towards my heart.

Almost there, almost there, I, oh, hi Teuila.

Teuila’s mental avatar shows up in my mindscape, with the most incredulous expression on her face. I bite my lips to keep from laughing. Te asks, “You would be what, if you had a what doing what inside your what now?”

Snrk. I snort and can’t help myself as I can’t stop myself from laughing. I suppose you heard that thought train, huh Te?

Teuila closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose, “My Airhead. Please tell me you’re not where I think you are.”

I do my best to maintain a straight face on my telepathic avatar, and Teuila is the one that cracks before me, as she bursts into laughter. Te reminisces, “This is, hahaha, this is, haha, you great big dork, just like Leviathan, you big dummy! Oh this is priceless, you’re going to have to come out the same way aren’t you?”

I can’t help my laughter, but I shake my head before admitting, “No, I don’t think I could if I wanted too, I’ve been pummeling my way towards its heart. It’s pretty bruised in here from the beating you gave it, it’s a lot less resilient against being bludgeoned into submission, especially internally. I’ve been hitting it with some thunder shouts, and electro shock punches, as I crawl towards its heart.”

Teuila nods solemnly, “Well, that’s good, because the other two are here, and Tiki isn’t doing so hot. She said she’d be ready if we could get them within about fifty meters of a point a little ways away from the rest of the injured. I really want her to be feeling better, and recovering, but she’s a gosh darn hero, fighting through the pain anyway.”

I nod in agreement. Kitten is pretty special that way, yeah. Oh, before I forget, my avatar adds, “Oh, by the way, there’s harefolk in the swamp, oh, and bully frogfolk, and I think they’re probably at war, the bullies are, well, bullies, so I’d side with the hares, even if they hadn’t sent someone to risk helping me get into a dugout. I turned them down, since I wasn’t intending on running or hiding from the hydra anyway. Point being, my intution is saying that there’s a lot of them, and if we’re lucky, they might just help the Aasimovians through the whole of the Jaggedfen Bog.”

Teuila’s eyes widen at the prospect of allies, at something maybe possibly going right on Rayileklia. I feel that glimmer of hope within her, and I want to nurture it. Everything inside her is still a tempestuous sea of roiling emotions. Wave after wave hits her, but she stands just that bit taller against the waves. She resists their pressure just a bit more, and leans just a bit further into the ones she’s willing to accept. Alright Reggie, focus up. Let’s get out of this serpent’s insides, and more importantly, get out of this alive.