The heat and humidity are stifling. The stench is nauseating. The darkness is foreboding, clawing at the tiny torchlight to claim the wanderers.
And, the 15 foot long, blood-thirsty serpentine creatures pursuing them are terrifying.
The warrior is mysterious, confident, and blunt, and he’s now running as fast as he can along the fleshy floor of the titanic creature’s lung which they currently inhabit. The creatures pursuing them are right behind them, vicious and relentless. They have one singular goal in mind; to destroy all invaders within the colossal organism known as a sand gryduke.
The gryduke, ironically, likely has no idea they are present, or it might try to cough or thrash about to help foil the invaders within its own body. However, they are infinitesimal compared to the gryduke; little more than prey it swallowed several hours ago. It has no idea of the intent of one of the two living invaders.
Lykha, the fairy, does her best just to stay conscious in the magical capsule containing her. She’s nauseous from the stench brought from the creature’s bowels by the antibodies in their pursuit of the warrior and her. The warrior is armed with a long polearm that has a sword-like blade on one end, but he’s yet to draw it from his back. Instead, he’s running in what Lykha believes is the direction of its head.
“Can’t you attack them!?” she cries out. More than once, she’s felt directed heat like a monster breathing on her capsule.
“If I injure the lung too badly, the gryduke might cough.” The warrior’s voice is fairly calm, other than being in the earliest stages of becoming winded.
It’s an understandable concern. Being that they’re inside one of the creature’s lungs, it coughing, sneezing, snorting, or otherwise exhaling or inhaling violently could very possibly have the force of a hurricane or tornado, and the two tiny beings -a human and a fairy- would be helpless in the torrent.
Meanwhile, if they do nothing, the numerous serpentine antibodies viciously pursuing them will overtake them and -if they’re lucky- kill them instantly.
Lykha flinches when the warrior vaults over one of the lung’s trunk-like blood vessels. She’s trying to keep her stomach under control, but isn’t winning. And, so long as she’s in the capsule, her limited magical abilities -her only combat abilities- are virtually useless. She is at the mercy of a warrior who is undoubtedly experienced, it seems, but is alone and on the run right now.
Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t simply break her out of the capsule. The magic armoring the capsule makes it nearly indestructible to all known physical means. According to her elders, Lykha has heard that the capsule can only be opened by the captor, which obviously leaves the poor fairy in a bind.
And an indestructible capsule…
Lykha sits up, shouting, “Throw me!”
“What?”
“Throw me! Anywhere! I can lure them!”
“Then what? They’re difficult enough to fight one on one.”
The warrior drops into a slide through alveoli of the lungs, narrowly avoiding a pounce that he heard coming. The antibodies have spastic, violent movements, thrashing viciously in an attempt to even clip the warrior and stumble him.
Lykha suppresses a dry heave, and she groans out, “Do you have a better plan?”
“No.”
There’s a pause, and while still on the run, Lykha is lurched about by the warrior unshouldering the capsule and preparing to throw it.
“WAIT! Y-you’ll come back for me, right? Promise me you’ll come back for me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He throws her backwards, and she gets a good look at one of the antibodies as she sails past.
Lykha’s plan involved her screaming. She manages to uphold her part. She screams and screams in terror as the torch light quickly vanishes. Of course, her intent was to scream intentionally. She couldn’t prevent these screams if she wanted to. Antibodies set upon her capsule instantly, knocking her around with ferocious slams and impacts. She can’t process fully what’s happening, as the many antibodies around her thrash her about.
Bites, claws, stomps, body impacts, and tumbles are just some of the jarring impacts on the capsule, and Lykha screams the full range of her lungs’ strength.
Her biggest fear, but not by much, is what the warrior said. He wasn’t serious, was he? He’ll come back for her. He has to, right? No one’s that evil or heartless. She offered to help him. He wouldn’t utilize that to escape by himself, would he?
Lykha braces at a particularly hard impact, and tears start to stream down her cheeks. The darkness is terrifying, and she’s being ragdolled by monsters she can no longer see. Her wings are the only source of light right now, and the sounds around her are shrieks, roars, and thuds of the antibodies.
She cries out helplessly and desperately, “PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”
A thick, warm liquid splats on her cheek, and she flinches. Is it acid? Poison? She whimpers as she awaits yet another horrifying impending doom.
A spark in the darkness.
And then, a new torch light of fire.
The fire isn’t still though, as its wielder launches his polearm like a spear, and the flaming improvised spear pierces two of the antibodies. The grappling hook flukes are extended, preventing the polearm from passing through all the way, and the two antibodies are now stuck together. They viciously claw at each other, either because they have mistaken each other for targets, or because they don’t actually identify each other as allies and are simply flailing to escape their predicament in their violent way.
She looks as the warrior ignites his torch again, still strapped to his left forearm. Behind him are two of the antibodies, unmoving and slashed into messes of greenish blood.
In the light of the flame on his polearm, Lykha scoops the liquid from her cheeks. It looks the same. Is this antibody blood? She looks up. Sure enough, the same liquid is oozing out of the wounds the weapon is pierced through.
However, the warrior is not the only attacker of the antibodies, proven when a third living antibody dives out of the darkness towards Lykha and the two speared together, and it impacts the first two violently. Lykha is tumbled with a startled yell when the mess of antibodies slams into her capsule once more.
This time, though, she notices. One of the two speared together is yanked off of the polearm by the impact, while the other is slashed several times by the third antibody in its attempts to claw towards Lykha’s capsule. The one being slashed flails in return, and some of its own blade-like attacks slash and wound the third. Ultimately, their violent attacks are still intended for Lykha and her capsule, but they have no regard for each other. The greenish liquid splashes everywhere.
She spots the warrior slaying the one that was knocked free of the polearm. He has a blade -either a really short sword or a really long dagger-, and he skillfully dodges slashes while swinging in with precision swipes of his own. Quickly enough, the injured antibody succumbs to its wounds, and collapses.
Lykha has had to endure being battered around several more times as the two remaining antibodies try to destroy her. She’s undoubtedly hurting, because SHE’S far from invincible.
The warrior runs up the back of the third antibody, jamming his blade into its head, twisting the blade before diving over the first and tumbling across the squishy lung tissue. The antibody swings at him, but misses. He uses the moment to search for an opening. His dagger is still in the third antibody, and his polearm is still jammed in the current one. For the moment, he’s disarmed, and in fact, one of his own weapons is just as dangerous to him with its blade swinging with every turn of the antibody.
Lykha does the only thing she can think of; the only thing she really can right now. She cries out, “Hey! Hey! Over here!”
She pounds on her capsule and scratches at it, trying to make noise. The antibody is still focused on the warrior, though. He’s fully on guard and is watching the antibody closely, but he has to keep his distance.
Lykha runs through everything she can think of. The capsule is too heavy for her to move, especially in the semi-sticky lung moisture. The capsule can’t be broken by her magic, and it actually suppresses her magic. Of course, the question has crossed her mind; how did her captor expect her to grant his wish with the capsule blocking her magic?
Maybe it doesn’t block all of her magic?
She tries to glow brighter.
Nope.
How about summoning a small flame?
Still nothing.
The warrior dives into a roll to avoid the antibody as it claws towards him, but his polearm pokes the lung when it leans forward. A deep, warning groan fills the WHOLE body of the gryduke. It felt that one.
Lykha needs something. Any idea will work. Any spell.
Create water?
No.
Static tingle?
Nothing.
COME ON! HOW CAN A GLASS JAR STOP MAGIC!?
An idea hits her. Her finger will fit through one of her air holes. She discovers this when she grabs the hole in frustration. The inside of the capsule does in fact block her magic. How it works, she may never know. But…
Lykha points a finger through, summoning a flame. A tiny orange flicker ignites on her fingertip.
Excited, Lykha points at the antibody, firing embers at it. Her magic isn’t very strong. Many fairies fear using their normal magic too much, as it could have the same effect as using their wish over time. Young fairies especially propagate this rumor. But, Lykha’s mother always insisted otherwise.
Still, all she has for now is tiny, brief flickers of fire that she can cast. It’s little more than a match-stick’s worth of fire for about a second, but Lykha knows as well as anyone; matches can still hurt. And, she can cast it many times a day.
To her surprise, it works. The antibody flinches, whirling. When it sees the source of the pain, it stalks ferociously towards her. Lykha keeps casting until she reaches her limit; about ten casts of her relatively weak spell. She sinks back to her knees, watching as the antibody pounces on her.
When it lands, it’s the polearm that contacts first.
It hits the indestructible capsule, driving the polearm out of the antibody as it lands on her with a thud. Lykha screams, and the antibody starts to squirm back up.
It doesn’t get another attack, though. The warrior has arrived, taken up his favored weapon, and slashed the antibody’s neck cleanly. It slumps back down unceremoniously, burying Lykha in her capsule with its body.
The fairy waits anxiously. The moment of truth. Is she a burden, or a help? Or, at the very least, is he evil or good?
After a moment, the antibody is rolled off of the capsule, and the warrior picks it up. He shoulders it without a word and walks over to his dagger, still lodged in the head of the third antibody.
Lykha asks from her kneeling position in her capsule, “S-.. So, did we win?”
The warrior nods. “Yep.”
He sheathes his dagger on the small of his back, continuing in the direction of the slowly pounding heartbeat.
The fairy forces a nervous laugh, saying, “I-I thought you were actually going to leave me.”
“What gave you that idea?”
“W-well… When I asked you to promise to come back for me, you said;” She does her best to imitate him, “‘Don’t be ridiculous.’”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So, you were saying it was ridiculous to think you wouldn’t come back?”
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“No. It would be ridiculous for me to make a promise where I could die.”
The small woman frowns. That wasn’t exactly the answer she wanted, but he’s not wrong. He didn’t seem scared, but he did seem pretty sure death was likely.
Lykha sighs. “Thank you for coming back for me. I know how much I owe you.”
“Nothing. I’m here to kill the gryduke. We’re going the same direction.”
“Wh-... You didn’t have to save me. I know that.”
“Agreed. Do you have any spells left?”
“I-... Wh-uh, no. No, I don’t have enough magic left today. I-I can try, but…”
“It’s fine. Just inventorying our assets.”
They both listen intently when distant roars fill the area.
“More of them!?”
“A creature this size is going to have a lot of antibodies…”
“I KNOW THAT!” She adds more calmly, “I mean, I get that, but… How do they find us?”
“Pheremones. Their blood acts like a pheremonal tag that attracts more antibodies.”
Lykha can feel the color drain from her face. She asks, “What do we do?”
“Try to kill the gryduke and escape quickly.”
“That’s not an answer!”
“It’s what I intend to do.”
“They’ll catch us for sure!”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely!”
“There’s usually a way out.”
“Forgive me for being scared! I’M not used to this like you!”
“I know.”
The fairy sighs. “Okay, is there anything we can do? What have you done before?”
“Kill the gryduke and es-”
“BESIDES THAT!”
“Depends on when they…”
“Cough. Make the gryduke cough!”
“That… will likely…”
“We have to get through another membrane to get to its heart, I assume, right? What if, on our way out, we make it cough somehow? The antibodies that followed us in here will be coughed out, right?”
“Probably.”
“More will come, won’t they?”
“Probably.”
Lykha slumps, but the warrior adds, “We’ll go with your plan. Best case, it buys us some time.” He jogs ahead on his path, digging some objects out of his various tool pouches and equipment bag.
“What are those?”
“Spark lyme, borated oxide paste, and petroleum extract.”
“And… that’ll make the gryduke cough?”
“Should. It’ll make a thick smoke bomb.”
Lykha stares at him, surprised. But, he already has the three ingredients mixed, and he holds it as he digs his flint out.
“Let me try.”
The fairy points her finger through an air hole at the improvised chemical bomb. She asks, “This won’t blow up right away, right?”
“Shouldn’t.”
“Are you serious!?”
“We’re out of time. Do it now.”
“Okay okay!” She quickly focuses. It’s painful to draw on magic beyond her daily limit, like straining to exhale with her nose and mouth blocked. It’s a deep strain in the core of her being, but she manages to get a spark of energy. A tiny flame flicks to the smoke-bomb, igniting its surface. It instantly billows out heavy grey smoke, and he tosses it away. No sooner than the first bounce does the bomb explode violently with a fiery explosion.
“YOU BASTARD!”
The warrior ignores her, already slashing the wall of the lung with his polearm in fluid, continuous slashes. The gryduke’s deep, pained groan and shifting motions rock them, but the warrior keeps his balance and attack on point. An opening is formed, and liquid rushes in, but he doesn’t wait. He jams his blade through and dives after it, piercing the outer membrane around the lung. Liquid pours out around them, and Lykha coughs on a tangy, sharp something in the air.
The warrior’s voice coughs once and he rasps a little gravelly, “Ammonia. Not lethal dose, but won’t be comfortable.” He coughs again, slogging forward even as a sharp gust shakes them from the gryduke exhaling sharply; either in cough, snort, or sneeze. Its motions stumble the warrior as he walks, but he keeps moving forward.
His torch eventually illuminates the creature’s heart. It’s a massive organ, tensing spontaneously in intermittent bursts and with a deep Bum. Bum. Bum.
It’s an impressive sight to behold for a fairy, who is already the smallest race walking the planet’s surface. The gryduke’s heart is many times larger than either of them; probably spanning 50 feet across, maybe more. It expands slowly, and squeezes tight quickly, sending blood to every corner of its body.
It is beating faster now than it was earlier, based on the more rapid pace to the ‘Bum. Bum. Bum.’ The gryduke is groaning and moving now, shifting back and forth like a boat on the ocean. The warrior skillfully keeps his footing, even as he stumbles towards the heart itself.
Lykha coughs into her hands, trying now to clear her lungs. But, the ammonia is irritating them constantly. She just starts to wonder what the warrior’s plan is, when he draws his polearm.
Lykha sits up in disbelief, staring at his helmet from his left shoulder. Her eyes are watering now, but she can tell where he is. She asks, “Are you serious?”
“Now what?”
“You intend to just poke a hole in its heart.”
“Yesss…?”
“WE’LL DROWN!”
“How much blood do you think it has?”
“A lot!”
The fairy does realize that this warrior has more experience in this matter than she does, but so far, she’s seen nothing but winging it and reckless fearlessness. He doesn’t have a solid plan for anything, and she feels like they’re squeaking by -WITH what help she can provide-.
The warrior replies in another irritatingly simplistic answer. “Want me to loose your capsule so you’ll float?”
“What!? No! I want you to think of something else. Don’t you have a bomb or something? Something with a fuse so we have time to escape?”
“You’re thinking too much. We’ll be fine.”
“You’re not thinking enough! At all, even!”
The chest cavity of this creature is still big to them, but it’s not nearly as spacious as the lung. If all of its blood drains through the heart, it’ll quickly fill up. And, maybe her capsule would float, but he won’t. If nothing else, she’ll still need him to escape.
“This has worked before.”
“Yeah, because of dumb-...” A foreboding wail in the distance halts Lykha in her tracks. It’s the same one dogging them through the lungs.
She quickly changes to, “If we die, I’ll never forgive you.”
The warrior nods, jogging closer to one of the major blood vessels leading out of the heart. Given the heart is suspended above them by over 10 feet, it’s the closest spot he can easily reach.
The warrior readies in a combat stance, as if posture should matter while cutting a fixed object, even if it is twitching a little.
When he swings, she understands why.
He swings in fluid, rapid slashes, continuing as he virtually twirls the quarterstaff back and forth, like he’s drilling a basic training twirl. His motions are steady, and each individual slash cuts a little further into the vessel.
The antibody wails and calls are drawing nearer, and Lykha urges, “Hurrryyyyyy.”
The warrior slashes one last time, dodging to the side as a geyser of blood rockets past him. The heart is squeezing at that moment, and the surge relaxes when the heart starts to draw for the next beat.
He steps, swinging as hard as he can one last time. This one, with the vessel already heavily wounded, severs the vessel more completely. Blood sprays everywhere, dousing the warrior and raining into Lykha’s capsule, which she squirms to avoid as much as she can. Hot blood oozes across her bare feet, and she whines.
Now, the warrior runs again. The blood is quickly rising, almost as if the fairy’s foresight wasn’t so far off.
Then again, he didn’t dispute her. He just charged into the fray. And, in this case, they didn’t have time to plan it out.
She asks as she watches behind him, “Where are you headed?”
“Second heart.”
“Grydukes have two hearts?”
“Usually.”
She groans. She just wants to see the outside again. She never wants to be somewhere like this ever again.
This time, though, the warrior runs at a much smaller organ, beating similarly to the other one, though much faster. Its second heart is less impressive, but undoubtedly keeping it alive.
The floor shifts, and the warrior nearly falls, dropping to a single knee as he braces with his weapon. He quickly rises, surging towards the heart. With this one, he actually leaps off of a lump of flesh and jams his polearm blade-first into the heart, using his weight to leverage it down and cause another slash. Blood rushes out, further filling the ‘floor’ with a layer of red liquid.
“Ready to go?”
Lykha glares at the warrior when he asks this. It’s clear he’s making a joke, but now?
He runs for the way they came.
“Wait! What about the antibodies?”
“Not many exits in a monster.”
“What about the other lung?”
The warrior sighs, sliding to a stop. He scrambles back the opposite way. Maybe she’s paranoid, but she would swear she can hear the splashing of antibodies approaching through the blood.
Her eyes are glued behind them. She watches the darkness diligently.
The armored monster slayer slides to a stop, swinging his blade. He makes several slashes, but isn’t through, yet.
Lykha spots it. The splashing isn’t getting closer, nor is it furious or violent like all of the antibody’s movements. They don’t need to run; not in several inches to a foot of blood.
Instead, the antibodies are swimming through the blood like gigantic eels or snakes, rapidly and near-silently approaching.
“Behind us!”
“I know!”
“No, right NOW!”
“I know!”
Lykha whirls to face him, but he dives shoulder-first into the lung, managing to squeeze through the flesh of the lung. They are knocked back down by a large impact that shakes the gryduke thunderously, and the warrior scrambles to his feet as the vicious white antibodies squirm through the hole he just created.
“What did it just do!?” calls out Lykha.
“It died.”
“It… It did?”
“Yep. Let’s hope its head is above the sand.”
“You’re joking. I know you’re joking. But it’s not funny. Stop joking with me!”
“Alright.”
She glares at him, but as usual, there’s nothing she can do right now. He’s in a dead sprint in the direction of the ‘wind’ as the monster’s apparent last breath leaves its body. It grows gradually stronger the narrower the lung space gets, and by the time they reach the bronchial tubes connecting the lungs to the trachia, the warrior is bounding in big, leaping steps, mainly trying to keep his balance. The wind pressure is doing the work, and it’s extremely strong.
And, on the positive side, the antibodies are extremely aerodynamic, so the increase of speed for the warrior and Lykha have let them pull away from the monsters. Soon enough, Lykha can see light. Oh, how the light sets a fire of hope in her. She never thought she’d be so excited to see the glaring sun of the desert! But there it is! It’s so close!
However, for every positive side of anything, there seems to be a universal law that there must be a negative.
The duo is moving so quickly with the exhale, that when they reach the sunlight itself, they fly into the sky. HIGH into the sky. It takes a moment to sink in for the fairy specifically, and when she realizes how high they actually are, she screams. The warrior doesn’t make any specific noises or say anything, and simply swings his arms in apparent futility.
New tears find Lykha’s eyes once more, and she screams and screams.
But, with one final burst of good luck, or strange improvised preparedness, the warrior hits a dune feet-first, rolling down the dune. Lykha is tumbled like a ragdoll in her capsule, as the warrior rolls endlessly head over feet.
When the warrior comes to rest on his back, Lykha’s capsule is resting near his head, with her in a daze on her own back. She’s covered in blood, bile, and sand, along with that coating her capsule. The warrior lays still for a while, catching his breath.
He surprises her when he asks, “You okay?”
“Me? Oh! Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you.”
He nods.
She sighs. “You did it. You really did it. I can’t believe it.”
“It’s what I do.”
She laughs a good, long laugh of relief, wiping her eyes when she cries one last time. This time, though, they’re tears of joy at being alive.
After she calms down, she asks, “So… Now what?”
The warrior finally sits up wearily, replying with a little effort, “Head into the requesting village nearby and inform them the gryduke is dead.”
“So, you hunt these things for a living? You must get paid pretty well, I imagine.”
“Sometimes.”
“I mean, can’t you name your price? I don’t imagine there are many like you.”
“I can.”
“Alright. Let’s do it.”
The warrior nods, returning his polearm to its scabbard and ensuring the fairy’s capsule is slung comfortably over his shoulder. He even has the consideration to drape a blanket over the capsule to shade her. Though, this could be to keep his treasure hidden.
“What… do you plan to do with me? I-If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”
“Turns out, this village has a wise elder. We’ll ask them how to open the capsule.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“You… You’ll just let me out. Just like that?”
“Are you a criminal?”
“I MOST CERTAINLY AM NOT!”
“Then, I will.”
“I…” She pauses her thought. “Thank you.”
He nods silently, walking in what would otherwise seem like an endless tract of desert sand. The fairy realizes she shouldn’t give him ideas if he has none already. She can’t do anything to change the outcome yet, so for now, she has to watch and see what he does.
To her surprise, though, Lykha isn’t as afraid as she was with her original captor. Something about this warrior seems different. Naive trust may have gotten her into her current predicament, but this time, she doesn’t even have the warning tingles she’s pretty sure she ignored with her captor.
This warrior had ample opportunities to show more wretched or selfish colors, and instead, he worked with Lykha to defeat a monster. Or, more accurately, made use of what little help she could provide trapped in her capsule.
Lykha is a bit curious about this warrior. If only a bit.
But for now, she's thankful to be alive.
***********************************