Chapter 85

Snake Report: Life as a False God, Day 8

Today I was bamboozled into being eaten alive.

As always it was... well, you already know.

To brush off a classic analogy: it was like walking a really long and spiraling plank while some old goblin-jerks threw back goblin-wine and cackled over their stupid goblin-faces.

Alright, I'll admit that the concept I was aiming for got thrown-off there a bit, but I'm still a little flustered. Mostly on account of being gobbled right on up like a stray piece of blue-scaly-spaghetti.

Being eaten alive will shake someone up.

I don't care who they are: until they're drowning in stomach acid, they have no damn clue. It's really scary, watching yourself be dissolved, watching your healing be outpaced and the burning sensation start to... Hisss...

I'll stop there, and just say the following: It's dead.

It's dead Jim.

This is really the only thing that matters, in the end. The Tiny-Snake struggle is real nowadays.

Death on all sides. If I think I'm safe, I'm probably mistaken. Still... there's another object of concern I think should be considered now.

I really have no idea where I am.

Absolutely no idea.

See, when this all started- I did know (relatively) where I happened to be. I'd made my way to the top of the giant root pillar like I was supposed to.

All the way up, to where it carves out as a passageway, and. I slithered on by past hundreds of crazy Goblin-carvings and ritualistic looking symbols, as I made my way with my tongue tasting cool and sweet air.

To the surface.

Honest: I was so close.

Closer than I had ever been. It was in plain sight.

My body just sort of locked up when I realized this. That breeze of fresh air was something else- like a once in a lifetime moment. After living my entire snake-life in a dark and gloomy dungeon of ancient mysterious and terrible monsters, fresh air is like a magic, in and of itself.

It's like a drug, a smell and taste and feeling that takes a hold and doesn't let go.

I didn't want it to let go.

If anything, I wanted the opposite. I wanted to stay wrapped up in the feeling forever, just sitting there and embracing the warmth.

I was totally and completely dumbstruck.

Absolutely in the moment.

So, maybe you can imagine that when I came to the final expanse of the root, I might have let my guard down a tiny bit. Right where dungeon gave way to roots and soil, to a final open portion before the outside world.

There on the precipice of a rough gathering of earth, branches, and feathers: I sat like a statue.

Total ignorance.

I was wrapped up in the beautiful light of an early morning- not a presumed morning where I just took a guess and judged the glowing fungi and crystals to mark some rhythm of time passing, but a REAL morning. A sun rising through distant leaves and branches, with the warm embrace of wind and heat that made me think it might be summer somewhere beyond the massive expanse of tree trunks the size of sky-scrapers. They billowed out in all directions I could see, colors of green and brown and faintly above: Blue.

The sky.

Hissss... How long had it been?

For a few precious seconds, I was thinking of nothing else.

I'd achieved Snake-zen.

No Quest. No scary Goblin Shamans. No Monsters to kill. No humans calling me a calamity on mankind, and no need for Points. None of these things mattered.

Beneath the crazy green glow of an impossible forest, I was a total peace. The leaves shifted in the distance beyond the root-cavern's opening, the songs of birds and air sweeping through rustled and chirped with the echoes of my memories from a previous life.

And so, in this state of mind, I just sort of sat there defenseless. In awe of everything, soaking in the first true light I had really ever seen in this life, as the Giant Owl whose nest I just rudely intruded on turned its head and then decided to swallow me whole.

Yeah.

So... I messed up.

Hisss...

I messed up pretty bad.

Seriously bad- I mean, I was eaten alive. I didn't even have time to complain before I ended up down a gullet and into a bunch of stomach acid. My second life flashed before my very eyes, followed shortly by my first one, and maybe the faintest glimmer of one before that?

All up in the air at this point. Or it was, really.

I was, more specifically.

I was in the air.

See, the Owl... Well, it made a big mistake. After swallowing a Tiny Snake, if decided to spread its wings, get a bit of movement in after breakfast. No matter how big and impossibly strong a giant Bird-Monster might be though, you know what it really shouldn't do?

Eat something [Toxic]