“Less screaming, more concentrating on holding on,” KieraFreya complained. Chloe was surprised by the note of fear in her voice.
“Not scared, are we?” She grinned mischievously.
“No. It’s just, I’ve never done this before.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “The gods create the land, but they don’t even bother to sample everything that it has to offer? What a shame.” She thought about all the wicked things she could do to tease KieraFreya, forgetting the goddess could read her thoughts.
“Don’t you even dare—”
Chloe burst into wild laughter as she willed the scooper to make a straight vertical dive. Her stomach rose into her mouth, her heart thumping wildly as tears stung her eyes. It was a good thing she wasn’t claustrophobic, she thought as the sand remained thick and cloying around them.
Chloe heard the others shouting something behind her. Heard Ben’s laughter; he was clearly enjoying the ride. She tried to turn to check on the others, but she saw only thick sprays of sand behind the tracks she left, shunting straight into the wide, fanned out head feathers of the second scooper.
And then she heard it coming—the great rumble as though a train was working its way toward a subway station. Chloe’s ears pricked up as her mind tuned back in to what she was trying to achieve. What she’d actually come here to do. Her wrists and ankles began to vibrate with the metallic hum of the magnetism.
The sound was all around her, an echo chamber in which the source of the sound was impossible to detect. She felt the scooper twitch and did her best to reassure it with her mind.
“This is it,” she said through gritted teeth. “Where are you, baby?”
The scooper began to veer in the opposite direction of what Chloe willed, the animal’s instinct for survival now taking the place of its ingrained obedience. Chloe pulled the reins hard, trying her best to keep the scooper on track. She just barely managed to regain control.
“That’s it,” she said, petting the scooper’s body, her own body low and hugging the bird. “Just a little farther.”
The noise came in a deafening burst of train brakes squealing. Chloe heard screams from behind and half-turned to see that the sands that had surrounded her and her party were looser than ever, breaking up into smaller particles and being sucked backward.
Chloe felt her scooper slowing down as suddenly the monstrous cavern of the sandworm’s mouth began to come into focus. Sand spilled inward, and now she could see Tag and Ben on their respective scoopers. The bright yellow birds were fighting for their lives, redoubling their speed as they raced to outrun the sandworm.
They came up beside Chloe, Ben cupping his mouth and blinking against the stray particles of sand. “Who invited your mom?” He jerked a thumb back to the sandworm.
“My mom?” Chloe shouted. “I thought this was an actualization of what you tell all the ladies is hiding in your pants?”
Ben looked back, nodding smugly. “You’re not far off.”
Chloe let out a laugh, dropping lower to help the bird streamline. “Come on, let’s give this ginormous penis a run for its money.”
The birds kicked into a higher gear, the sandworm munching away at everything it could behind them. Its noise was horrific, even impressive. Once again, Chloe struggled to work out how something like this existed beneath the sand. How something of such monstrous bulk was able to move at the speed it did.
They raced onward in a direction that the sandworm couldn’t guess, twisting and turning, doing their best to outrun the creature. The beast crashed and wriggled behind them, its mouth never closing. Chloe wondered where all that sand went. If so much found its way inside, there must be a way back out…
That gave Chloe an idea.
“Tag! Ben!”
The pair looked at her, Jesepiah and Gideon clinging onto their counterparts, unable to lift their heads for fear of letting go and falling off.
“This is going to sound crazy, but…
“I love crazy!” Ben grinned.
Chloe continued, “I need you to let go of your birds. We need to get eaten by the worm.”
“What!” Tag cried, disbelief on his face. “Are you insane?”
Chloe turned back, unable to believe what she was asking of them. “All that sand has to come out somewhere. Who’s to say that we couldn’t make it out the other side too? The birds will be faster because they’ll be lighter, and they might have a chance to escape. Besides, if we die, what’s the worst that could happen? We simply respawn. We’ll be fine.”
“Speak for yourself!” came the muffled words of Jesepiah.
Chloe’s face dropped. She had forgotten that Jesepiah was an NPC, meaning that if she died, she was gone forever. From what she had seen, there was no respawning for players the AI had created.
She allowed her doubt to freeze her, not wanting to be responsible for the death of a comrade. Just how sure was she that her plan was going to work?
She nodded in resolve, reaching a conclusion in her mind. “Tag, we have to do this. Protect her with your life.”
Tag sighed but nodded.
“On the count of three. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“One…”
The monster tore behind them, picking up speed as if in anticipation of what they were about to do.
“Two…”
The scoopers kicked harder than ever, trying to retain the lead.
“Three!”
Chloe let go of her scooper, and it sped away from her. Sand cycloned around her body, bumping and scratching her with its texture. She closed her eyes and mouth, waiting for the abyss to take her, not disappointed when she felt the cool wetness of the sandworm’s mouth closing over her and saw the darkness within. That metallic thrum was almost overwhelming as she fell.
The sound was deafening. Through it all, she could make out Gideon’s shouts. She didn’t dare open her eyes for fear of infiltrating them with sand. The worm seemed endless.
She hit something hard, her back impacting first, knocking out the wind out of her lungs. She coughed, feeling herself begin to drop down something slimy and tube-like. The sand disappeared, and she realized she was being filtered through one of the worm’s many biological mechanisms.
“Watch out below,” Tag said, a brightness in his voice that gave Chloe hope. She chanced a peek and saw that she was being pushed by some kind of strange muscles through a pipe or tube. It stretched and warped before her with no discernible end in sight.
“If you kick my head, I’m going to kick your ass,” Chloe called up the tube, letting out a surprised cry as the pipe suddenly ended and she fell several feet into something squishy, soft, and wet.
“Eurgh,” she grumbled, raising her head. “The next time I suggest something this crazy, find a way to make me stop.”
To her surprise, KieraFreya chuckled. “And miss out on all this fun? Please. I haven’t had this much excitement in years.”
Chloe opened her mouth to reply, then stopped as she heard the others coming.
“Oh, crap.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chloe managed to barrel-roll in time to avoid getting squished as the others plopped down from the ceiling.
Although it was pitch-dark inside the worm, Chloe could tell where the others were by the sounds they emitted as they landed.
First came Tag, grunting and grumbling, unable to collect his thoughts as Jesepiah landed on top of him. Chloe heard her moan in a way that seemed a little bit too pleasurable to be pain.
Ben came next, slipping almost in silence until Chloe felt the extra weight land and suddenly heard Tag cry out, “Hey, whose hand is that?”
And finally, Gideon’s screams came through the tube, magnified and echoing around whatever chamber they were in as he joined the bundle of people below.
Chloe worked her way to her feet, the floor below her as unsteady as balancing on a bean bag. She conjured a single fireball in her hands and illuminated the messy tangle
of bodies and parts before her.
She placed her spare hand on her hip. “Strangely enough, I’ve seen you all in worse positions.” Her eyes went to Ben’s. “You, especially.”
Ben shrugged, freeing himself from the mass with far more grace than the others. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
“Ew,” Chloe returned with emphatic disgust. “If this is you hitting on me, you better wind your neck back in. I’ve only got eyes for this mission, and for KieraFreya.”
Excuse me? KieraFreya said suddenly.
Don’t overthink it. That’s not what I meant.
Ben laughed, offering a hand to help Gideon up, then Jesepiah. She hesitated, clearly enjoying her position on top of Tag.
“Jesepiah?” Chloe nudged her, giggling.
“What? Oh, fine.”
When they were all on their feet, Chloe lifted her hand high, letting the light reach the farthest reaches of the chamber. They were definitely inside a body system. The walls were fleshy and pink, and the chamber stretched well beyond the reach of her light. They could feel the sandworm moving still, although the creature seemed to have calmed down immensely since swallowing them all.
Chloe wondered if the birds had gotten lucky and outrun the beast.
She certainly hoped so.
“Only one direction to go, then,” Chloe said, seeing that, other than the hole from which they had been deposited, there was no other way out of the sandworm.
“Are you sure?” Gideon sounded uncertain.
“Do you see another exit?”
A couple of twists of his head. A sigh. “No.”
Chloe led the way, her light the beacon for the others to follow. As they stepped, the floor was sticky beneath them. There was a strange gloopy texture to the liquid that clung in strings to their feet.
Every few minutes the organ would shrink slightly and expand, the floor beneath them moving in small waves like the peristaltic movement of a caterpillar. Chloe realized with a sick kind of fascination that this must just be one of many of the mechanisms by which the sandworm forced its food farther down the chambers of its body.
They finally found an end to the enormous chamber, a place where the walls shrank into another tube, wide enough and high enough for them to walk in single file. Chloe could feel the armor now, pulling her and guiding her forward. Every fiber in her body was attuned to its call.
“What do you think it’s going to be?” Tag asked from behind Chloe as they continued their journey deeper inside. “The armor piece, I mean.”
“Hard to say, isn’t it?” Ben replied. “Could be anything. We have no idea what the entirety of Princess Leia’s armor will look like.”
“KieraFreya,” Chloe corrected with a chuckle.
Thanks.
“Whatever,” Ben continued. “It could be a mech suit with wings for all we know. Boots with springs that will help Chloe jump really high. A helmet the size of a beach ball. Gloves with daggers at the end of each finger.”
“A cushiony butt that helps soften landings,” Gideon added, smirking at the wit of his comment.
“Sure, that too,” Ben said, craning his head back at Gideon. “I guess some of us would like to see certain parts of Chloe enhanced, right?”
Gideon blushed, losing his words again as he stammered and flapped his mouth.
Chloe ignored them all, continuing to lead the way, the fireball steadily eating her mana. She paused, raising a fist like she’d seen soldiers do on TV, and cocked an ear.
“Do you hear that?”
A rumble rippled down the entirety of the sandworm, followed by a cry. Before they knew it, the tunnel walls began to close in, gripping tightly about them. Chloe’s fireball touched the walls of the sandworm’s inner tube and turned a small patch black. The flesh sizzled, and the smell of cooked meat filled their noses.
“Chloe, the fireball. Put it out,” Gideon shouted. “It’s too close to the worm’s body.”
Chloe snapped straight with the realization, extinguishing her fireball in an instant. They were plunged once more into darkness and they waited it out, grunting when the walls refused to release them for a while. Finally, they were able to breathe freely again, the pain passing from the worm and the tunnel returning to normal.
“I guess it’s lights out, gentlemen,” Chloe said. “Everyone grab the shoulder of the person in front. I’m not losing any of you to the worm.”
“You know I can do the Worm, right?” Tag said.
Gideon scoffed. “The dance move?”
“Nooo, I mean I can physically have sex with the worm,” Tag replied dryly. “Of course, I mean the dance move.”
Ben’s laughter rang loudly around them. “Yeah. Of course, you can.”
“You wait.” Tag grunted. Chloe could clearly hear the annoyance in his voice. “The minute we’re out of this tunnel, I’m dropping down and showing you all. Just because I’m a dwarf doesn’t mean I can’t outdo all of you.”
“Save your showing off for your voice,” Gideon suggested.
Ben chuckled. “Even then, maybe leave something in reserve.”
Chloe could hear Tag seething, mumbling through his teeth as they navigated the tunnel. Jesepiah remained remarkably quiet, and Chloe was unsure if that was because she was afraid to defend Tag, or she was feeling overwhelmed by the position they were currently in.
It wasn’t until they emerged from the tunnel that Chloe felt her first real sense of danger inside the worm.
She paused in the open, waiting for the others to come through as she flicked up her map and zoomed in as close as she could. It was entertaining to see that the little icon which represented the sigil of the gods, when she zoomed in as close as possible, was actually moving around the map, circling beneath the abandoned village they had rested in.
“If only I had zoomed in a little earlier,” Chloe thought, closing her map and casting her fireball once more to reveal yet another long chamber, this one filled with several sludge-filled pools that shone an oily purple in the fireball’s light.
“Anyone for a dip?” Chloe laughed to herself, unaware that her companions had drawn their weapons. She was looking for the end of the tunnel rather than at the blobs and bubbles that were rising from the pools.
Chloe saw a slight tinge of green light coming from a small hollow at the back of the chamber. Her heart leaped, and she began to walk forward.
“I’d hold back if I were you,” Tag grumbled.
Her comrades took battle formation. Tag came to her side, then took a step in front, holding his hammer tightly in his hands.
Gideon was already muttering some incantation, his hands glowing with power.
Jesepiah dropped back, disappearing under her invisibility cloak.
Chloe couldn’t blame her. After the realization that should Jesepiah die, they’d never see her again, she’d rather Jesepiah remain hidden and safe when possible.
Ben had drawn his bow and now let an arrow loose. Chloe watched its trajectory, seeing the arrow find its mark in one of the rising sludge bubbles. It sank straight into its body. A cry of pain seeped out, and, whatever the hell it was that was in those pools fell back.
More of them came, now from the other pools, triggered like a chain reaction. Dozens and dozens of thick, oily bubbles took shape as first the heads burst into the open, then the arms, then their strange, thick legs as they crawled onto the fleshy surface and made in their direction.
“It’s like watching a water birth.” Chloe recoiled in disgust.
Tag cocked his eyebrow in Chloe’s direction. “What kind of messed-up births have you been watching online?”
“Not important,” Chloe said dismissively, addressing the group, “Guys, I can see something up ahead. We just need to work our way through this chamber, and the armor will be ours. I’m sure of it.”
She drew her sword, the first creature now within reach. Before Tag had a chance to club it, she stabbed the sword through its amorphous face, the blobbish cr
eature squealing before collapsing into a puddle on the floor.
“Stay on guard. My experience in these trials is that nothing is quite as easy as it appears.”
“You mean like that?” Tag said, pointing at the puddle as it began to regain its shape, arms stretching toward Chloe as she took another swipe. The sword slashed through its body and came out the other side. Where the sword had passed, there was no trace, the creature’s body knitting and healing itself as though Chloe were slicing through jelly.
“Well, that’s new,” she said, using Creature Identification and seeing the following script:
Unknown (Lv ???)
?HP
“Well, that’s more than useful.”
Ben shot another arrow, this time at one of the creatures that had fully climbed out of the pool. He watched with alarm as the arrow sank straight into the creature’s flesh again as though its very skin was sucking it inside.
“What the hell are these things?”
“I don’t know,” Chloe said, retreating toward the others. “Is your identification skill working any better than mine?”
“Not unless yours are telling you more than ‘unknown,’” Ben replied. “By my guess, these are partially digested bits of food the sandworm has taken in over the years. Undead creatures birthed from stomach acid and various other fluids.”
“Oh, you and your fluids,” Tag said, giving a tremendous cry as he bowled his hammer into one of the blobs, watching with glee as the creature exploded into a hundred thick globules of flesh. “There we are. When in doubt, smash it with a hammer.”
“You’re so wise,” came Jesepiah’s voice from nowhere.
Tag smashed another, then another. The blobs exploding into dozens of droplets. He cried out in celebration, laughing as he held his dripping hammer in the air. More creatures were coming at them from the other pool, but he didn’t care.
He checked his notifications, ready to read the experience gains.
“Strange. You don’t get any experience for defeating blobs, apparently.”
“Maybe because they’re already partially-digested and dead, they don’t count?” Gideon suggested, his hands now alight with electricity. He thrust his hands forward and managed to light up a group of three blobs, who shook and vibrated with the blue power before exploding as the others had.
Collecting The Goddess (Chronicles Of KieraFreya Book 1) Page 48
