Suddenly, over the goggles, I hear Iylynila’s voice harshly requesting, “Can you *please* not do that!? I nearly had a heart-attack you crimson gremlin smurf-ass ass. I know, I know, you’re immune to almost everything, but jumping into ancients’ mouths without your Honoris Causa up is nerve-wracking as hell! Stupid crimson munchkin gremlin goblin smurf-ass ass.”

Snorting a laugh as black fire washes out and around me, engulfing me, I try to maintain my composure. My semi-illusory spell absolutely fills this ancient Sand’s throat, and penetrates its membranes and sinuses. I shake my head ruefully. Really Illy? You want my mental walls up, but you get patched in to tease and berate me for my combat tactics, mid-fight? I can’t help chuckling.

The shadow-substance that makes up a greater-shadowy evocation feels like warm jelly as I move through it. It’s a sensation that’s a bit odd, but that’s how the spell works, being a semi-illusory copy of other spells. Those who know it’s an illusion are unharmed by it. Those who fail to realize it’s an illusion? Are quite harmed by it. Thankfully, the ancient Sand’s throat rattles in a screaming howl of pain, its flesh blistering and drying out from within. I sidestep the plasma, or pus, that spurts forth from the bursting blisters. Eugh.

Continuing, Illy chews me out further, “You just, ugh, you ass. Utterly asstastic ass. There were those giant bright ball attacks a bit ago. You and Tenith both were completely crazed lunatics, grappling them and pushing on them! Now some high-commanders are out there, have your crew locked down with dragon-fright, and you’re jumping into one of them as smoothly as you jumped into bed with me!”

Grimacing, and blushing, I hesitantly remind her, “Illy, uhh, our connection isn’t private. The security team has to be patched through to get the audio feeds from one scrying sensor to another. Erm. Sorry.”

The incredibly robust string of profanity—mostly the word ass used in creative fashions over and over and over—that comes across the goggle’s auditory scrying feed has me giggling like a maniac within this infernal blaze that’s consuming the ancient Sand from within. Still, I’m mortified and blushing fit to weld titanium in here, and just grateful no one can hear my thoughts, or see me the color of tomatoes. Phew, thinking about leaping into bed with Illy, erm, not thinking about doing it, I mean, not not thinking about not doing it. Ugh, what I mean is, recalling the time we, err, had intimate moments, has me sweating so hard that I’m dehydrated, totally parched, and has thrown off my breathing, and heart rate.

Still, the tirade from Illy continues, “I was going to hit up and take down some of the high-commanders, but was waiting for an opportunity so that I didn’t need to waste dragonforce countering and resisting their dragonfright.” Her voice takes on a sarcastic lilt, “But noooo, someone, some asstastic crimson smurf-ass ass has to go and ring the dinnerbell by pissing Terrorzin off so much that he throws a few of his top generals at your ass! And what’s with Vylon? He could be resisting, instead of sandbagging, waiting for you to take care of it.” Suddenly switching to addressing those watching the scrying feeds back at Solace, Illy snips, “Don’t you guys in the Eight at the security center dare tell him I said that! That means you Aaront, Prent, and Elshon!”

Starting off strong, Iylynila returns her attention to me, “Schism, I swear to Mother, if you get hurt, I’m going to, I’m gonna…,” but her conviction wavers and her voice fades into a mumble

When she trails off, I respond quietly, “I… love you too Illy. Disengage your stealth mission and come home safe, when you can. Okay? Your Dormies need you too. Farzhis and Veril should be able to handle more, with you at their side, and someone has to rein in Induul’s constant going off-grid.”

Grumbling, Iylynila finishes, “Oh you, you, you little gremlin! I hate that I love your stupid-ass ass so much. I’m, I’m, I’ll, argh! Just… just win this thing. Alright? Illy over and out.”

Sighing, I try to corral my thoughts and emotions. Being chastised by my once-paramour now daughter-in-law over open-comms is, well, it’d be flustering at the best of times. Being inside an ancient Sand whose breath weapon threatens a significant handful of people I love and care about, is not the best of times. Also, having Illy confirm that we’ve bedded together, in that way, fully audibly for everyone in the Strategists Eight to hear? Nightmare levels of mortification.

I mean, dragons and fae and stuff don’t really care who knows what about their, erm, romantic escapades, for the most part. But I have those dang buggy Fakeworld memory frameworks. Human-style embarrassment and stuff. Blarghydoodle. Reggie? Mhm? Maybe try to focus on the fight? I would, but my senses are overloading. Y’know how burning hair and flesh usually smell pretty terrible? Apparently burning moist reptile-meat smells pretty freakin’ delicious. I’m *almost*, *almost* tempted to sneak a nibble inside here. If we win this engagement though, I’ll be scarfing down the hearts of these ancients.

This thing isn’t dying, despite your best offensive spell cooking it from the inside in a pretty hardcore fashion. Phooph, yeah, but maybe we can at least ruin its breath weapon organ. Pausing, I side-eye the darkness, glad momentarily that I’ve got my psychic-aegis circlet on blocking out telepathy and other psy-magic. I really don’t need—.

Interrupting me, a voice from my goggles—one I can’t place in this echoing screaming throat—begins explaining, “Schism, between several scouts’ reports, and what Illy’d observed during her covert operations, we gather that those giant energy orbs have something to do with being produced by way of burning out Terrorzin’s mates. That is, his broodmothers as he refers to them. We can’t be certain how many he has, but such tactics are limited fortunately. I believe this burnout slays them, or leaves them soulless, catatonic, comatose.”

Blinking rapidly, that’s pertinent enough information to drag my concentration and focus back to the battle and the overall war effort. It’s insidious of Terrorzin, and sickens me to my stomach. The… the candle? Burning souls? That sounds so famil—Argh! My skull! Blood washes across my vision as something bursts inside my cranium. I tumble further into the ancient Sand’s throat. F-fudge. Ow. Okay. Mystery for some other time apparently. Holy friggin’ crap. Really don’t need that mid-battle, brain. Alright? Lay off. Friggin’ ow.

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Huffing and puffing, I stagger about inside the ancient Sand’s throat, and it works its torched esophagus overtime to try to swallow me. Urgh, ow. Vice-grip of doom here. Really, really wish I hadn’t had my brain explode mid-thought while still inside this baddie while they’re still alive. Alright, alright, calm down Reggie. Owwww. Kinda hard. Take a deep breath. Urghk. Even harder. You’ve got the neckchain of the everbreathing on. As far as I know, you could breathe even if your lungs collapse. In fact, they have, and you did. Your right lung is punctured again, even right now, because this squeezing fractured your stupid right ribs.

Blurghle. That… doesn’t make this better. My eyes swim about in their sockets as my head *would* loll weakly, if I weren’t completely constricted within this dragon’s throat. The spongy muscular flesh is coarse, dehydrated, rough as it tries to squish or swallow me. Well, let’s not make it easy for them. Wiggle a bit and angle Frostburn down, so that the next contraction has them tear their own throat along our path.

Here goes! Whoof! Oof, koff. They did *not* like that! Hurk. Oof. Still. Can’t. Make headway. Snrk. I chuckle at the accidental wordplay. Make headway to make my way out the head. Come on Reggie, get it together, and get out of this dragon to get together with your allies.

Waugh, my world is quaking. I think the ancient Sand has given up trying to swallow me, and is attempting to cough me out. My skull rattles and rolls, while I’m inside this snakelike tunnel. Ugh. So much for those snacks from earlier. Horf. This is the worst amusement park ride ever! Awe man, so much for the delectable scent of roasted meat. Eww. I second Teuila, from our tumble down the ramp the other day when she horfed on me, “That came out of me!?”

Speaking of. How have either of us vomitted? We’ve got digital gastric systems that just teleport food away and fill up a stats page number about our hunger. Ugh, no time to contemplate that. Yui, Yuri, bots, ‘scuse me for a second, I need my friggin’ telekinetic grips. Dumping a host of daggers out of a pack, I telekinetically lift them, and begin launching them into key locations up the inside of this esophagus. Now that the throat is even more agitated, and convulsing even harder, I use these new handholds and footholds, like a ladder to climb my way out of its esophageal track. Is that the right word? Honestly I don’t care at the moment.

My telekinetic grips resume their holds on Yui, Yuri, and the two bots I’ve been continuously gliding around to levitate them out of danger. Hm, I should probably retrieve those daggers, so that the dragon doesn’t cough and horf them up launching them at me like a sideshow knife-throw. I don’t need to end up a pincushion from my own daggers. Flipping my allies up into the air again with my telekinesis, I drag the daggers up out of the throat telekinetically as quickly as I can and resume my grips once more. Sorry you guys. I’ve only got four telekinetic grips.

Wait. Do I? I think. Right? Did my myconid form get a fifth grip up and running at any point? I know I was going to use it to do so if we had enough of the right type of gems. Friggin’ hell. Not knowing if I have four or five enchantments attached to my brain? That’s ridiculous.

I understand why Kinzul and Jarrah were impressed with telekinetic grips as a matter of fact. Permanent brain enchantments are a heavy load that just grows heavier the more there are. There’s way too much simultaneously attached to my brain. Like, ten, maybe twenty or thirty or forty telepathic bond networks, at least four copies of telekinesis, currently, the psy-blocking aegis, my aura-sight spell, and who knows what the hell else at this point.

Really Reggie? You should. You should totally know what the hell else. Okay, true. It’s hard to keep track of everything! I can’t grow in power so much as expand my toolbelt laterally. This means more and more and more crap to keep track of! Yeah, poor you Reggie, infinite sideways growth, wah wah. Wow, snark much? Screw yo—me. Rattling my skull, I chuckle with chagrin, really glad no one else can hear my brain at the moment.

Carefully pinging the inside of this ancient’s throat with necrotic rays and lances of frost, I loose a host of runic clip procedural effects within its mucous membranes. There we go. Now we’re making progress. Gotta be careful not to overload the clips and burn ‘em out though. We’ve got too many useful effects, some that are necessary in really dire emergencies to turn things around.

Woah sharp things incoming! Skirting a protrusion—or is that an intrusion, since I’m inside and they’re pointing this way? Err, anyway, skirting pointy things, I scramble my way up the mucous membrane webbing of this dragon’s sinuses. In mere moments I’m noticing light, probably from Worldstorm lightning, flicker and filter in through new holes beneath me.

Huh. Oh, hi Lucky. Hi Lil. Too bad my telepathy-blocking circlet is in place at the moment. Thanks guys. Was having a bit of trouble bringing this one down. Feeling Lucky’s aura bolstering me, I levitate Yui and Yuri closer, landing them upon his back, in order to free them from dragonfright. Their muscles loosen immediately upon approach to Lucky, once they get within a short distance of him. I know the Spellknights are trained to resist dragonfright of a certain intensity, in order to combat and hunt dragons, since those are their primary foes. The fact that these ancients locked down everyone? They’re bad news.

Suddenly the mouth I’m inside is rocked sideways, and the bottom mandible of the jaw comes clean off. Holy crap. Okay, that was either a haymaker or dropkick by Vylon. Huh, he really put his foot in this mouth. Pft. That makes sense. Did Lucky manage to free Teuila from dragonfright before she got too hurt by the clamoring horde and various breath-weapons? Well, Shaylon and Boetah took the breath weapons on personally, and most of the horde was paralyzed along with our allies. Still, it seems like some casters and ranged specialists had targeted those of us who were dragonfright-frozen.

Crap on a cracker, defending this chokepoint is getting to the point of near-impossibility. Also, please don’t actually crap on a cracker, that’s just gross. Reggie? Mhm? Shut up goober. Err, right. Taking stock of things, I’m trying to concoct any plan worth its salt, but coming up empty. We might need to beat feet and retreat. Really Reggie, beat feet? What? I think that’s a saying… I think.

Taking a deep breath, and puffing it out, I try again to get a better grip on the situation. Oof. Valkyrie love, you’re not lookin’ so hot dear. Well, I mean, you’re still hot in the attractive sense, I just—Reggie. Don’t worry about digging your foot out of your mouth when she can’t hear your brain. Eugh, I need to find a replacement for that phrase.

Seriously though. Te’s lookin’ banged up but good, though I wonder how she’s actually feeling. Probably chipper. Shaylon and Boetah look like they could take a month long hibernation to recuperate from the weathering these breath-weapons did. Hell, honestly, Vylon could too just with how badly he’s nursing his right arm. I’m glad I kept Yui and Yuri floating up out of the way.