Hello again! It has been a while since I last wrote in my journal, not due to a lack of events or desire to write though.

Just a plain old lack of time. Not sure exactly how long has passed since my last entry to be honest. Time is hard enough to track when you’ve got a great big blazing ball in the sky. Much less when you are trapped in the bowels of some great beast.

I must take some of the credit, or blame if you feel like being negative, for my current position. Onica and Lena both were very insistent that entering the mysterious smoking caves poking out of the ocean was a bad idea. I was equally insistent that there must be some cool stuff in there, and Julius backed me up.

Fen didn’t say much. I’m not sure he was paying any attention to the situation though, what with the drawing and all. He’s become something of an artist. Not a very good one, mind you, but still. Very impressive work for a hat. Possibly a horse, or the sky. Maybe a house?

Where was I? Right! Entering the caves! Well, things took a turn for the worse nearly instantly. When we entered the caves, fighting our way through rhythmic blasts of steam and waves, we encountered a sudden drop.

As tends to happen when things drop, we fell. We fell a long, long, long, long, long, long, llllllllllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggg, long way. Any attempt to stabilize or reverse out path were disrupted or destroyed outright by ever more severe blasts of wind. Snuffed my flames right out, scattered Lena’s waves and shards, and simply carried away anything Fen tried to do.

I don’t much enjoy being tossed about by the whims of some force beyond my control, but it was a bit refreshing I suppose. In a terrifying am I gonna die here? sort of way.

Anyway, as we fell, and attempted to stop ourselves from falling, we reached the bottom. Landing with quite a splash into a small sea of vile yellow fluids. Frothing waves splashed against small buoys and glaciers of indistinguishable matter, most looked like meat that had been sitting out too long. Around where we landed the sea became filled with terrible nasty sickly monsters. Long flat bodies, snapping toothy maws, and seeking slashing tentacles all over the place. Really, just awful.

I did what anyone would do in that situation. I engulfed the sea in flames and scorched the lives out of every last single one of them! Which, I must admit, was something of an error. As you might have guessed, those initial paired caves we sailed into, were but the flared nostrils of some great beast. The fall had been down its gullet, and the landing in its stomach.

Now, presumably, it had been snoozing before it suddenly got a tummy ache, which I suppose might have something to do with me attempting to burn a hole in its gut, and waking up. So, not only did we have to contend with the sudden appearance of acidic and scalding steam from my ill timed rampage, but also the shift of the entire ‘sea’ as the beastie stirred.

After that we…

Oh dear.

I gotta go!

More to follow!

Ok… Things are looking up! We didn’t get separated this time, thank goodness, but between the panicking, and the screaming, and the fleeing for our lives, it has been rather hectic, and rest and respites have been few and far between. The insides of this creature are inhospitable in the extreme. Between hordes of parasitic monsters, tiny to the creature, but giant to us the sheer size of the beast, and the danger every single environment inside of it poses to us it hasn’t been easy. All of which is saying nothing about the guards. I call them guards anyway, Lena calls them nasties. They’re amorphous blobs of greeny white goo that try to melt your face off and eat it.

I’ll be honest, this place better have some damn good goodies at the end of it, because it’s being ridiculous right now! We have managed to fight our way through five separate, but damn near identical chambers. All stomachs, and all subtly different shades of yellow and green. Onica had gathered a few Tinglewood vats of each for study and, uh, how’d she put it? Precise application at the best location at the appropriate time. Whatever that is supposed to mean when referring to several large barrels of super nasty gunk.

Wave after wave of these guard goobers have come at us, and I’ve noticed they are getting more and more retardant. Or fire-proof. Whichever you prefer. I am exhausted, I have been exhausted, and I imagine I will continue to be exhausted until we finally managed to break free from this thing… I really am not looking forward to the last step on that process.

To the best of my knowledge, the things that I eat are either vomited out, or uh, passed. I’ve been trying not to think about it.

Ugh! Oh geez, I thought about it… This really gives new meaning to being called a piece of shit.

I’m gonna go sleep now, Onica is on watch duty, but after her it’s Lena, then it’s my shift, so I gotta grab some shut eye while I can.

Goodnight.