Chapter 210: Chapter 195 – Finding the Way Out

"Rumor has it that the Lichdom of Ptolodecca had a truly monstrous guardian deity in their seas, one even massive creatures from the deeps avoided. Whether these rumors are true, or mere fabrications from envious neighbors, it remains fact that the lichdom had never seen any serious sea monster incursion for the past thousand years or so." - Magda Angbadd, scholar and historian from Jötunberg, circa 649 FP.

Even though Aideen had braced herself by pouring her magic throughout her body beforehand, the explosion still came.really close to overwhelming her. She felt how most of her body was just vaporized by the blast, her magic only barely managing to sustain the last bits near her back.

 

At the same time, the blast hurled her far away from where she was in the beast's heart, and she felt what remained of her body land on what felt like a puddle. Her magic went into overdrive as she pushed back against the destructive forces she still felt even there.

 

Slowly, she felt as her bones and organs formed once more, to be covered anew with flesh, which caused a surge of pain as raw, freshly regenerated nerve endings were exposed to air for a moment. Then her skin grew back and covered her flesh, a process that always caused a not insignificant amount of unbearable itchiness.

 

Finally, she blinked her regrown eyes. Her vision was still dominated in spots of bright light, and it took a few minutes before they subsided and she could see properly once more. What little she could see in the darkness, that is.

 

Fortunately her attempt to shield the hand on which she wore her storage ring was a success, and she brought out a lantern from there and lit it, gaining a proper view of her surroundings for the first time.

 

The massive heart of the beast she was in had been torn in twain, shredded almost in half, and looked as if it had been blown inside out. The organ somehow still attempted to beat, a feeble, futile attempt in its state, and finally remained still not long after.

 

The blood that had been in the heart and continued to flow for a while after the blast had leaked and fall into the cavity she was in like a waterfall, which was why she felt as if she had fallen into a puddle. Because it was indeed a pooling puddle of the beast's blood she fell into.

 

With the heart still, and the flow of blood reduced to a trickle, Aideen thought the beast was likely dead, or would be soon. Now what she needed to do was to find a way out of the beast, which proved to be a somewhat difficult task.

 

When she tried to climb the flesh of the beast to reach the top of the nearby organs in the cavity, she found that it had noticeably softened, no longer as hard as boulders. Soft enough she could climb it with ease, using her weapons to create handholds and footholds along the way.

 

From the top, she quickly noticed a massive, tube like structure that seemed to be headed towards the beast's head, assuming she had not disoriented herself along her way. She carefully walked towards the tube, careful to watch her footing on the now wobbly organ.

 

Between the tube and the flesh that surrounded it was a gap, a large enough one that allowed her to walk upright. At times the gap shrunk and forced Aideen to crawl past, while at other times it gave her plenty of room.

 

Aideen traversed the tube until it joined a larger one, and kept walking until she found it branching again. She took the branch that led to a higher place, and climbed it without much difficulty.

 

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After what was maybe a few hours of climbing, she found the tube splitting into four. She distinctly remembered how the creature had four nostril-like structures on the front of its snout when it came or swallow her back then, and thought she must have reached close to that region.

 

Encouraged, Aideen crouched down and began carving into the fleshy walls of the tube. This time it had not taken her too long to carve a hole large enough for her to go through. First she peeked into the hole, however.

 

Through the hole she saw what looked like a cavern, with hair both thick and fine growing from every surface like stalagmites and stalactites. Most importantly however, the place was dry, with only a small amount of water in puddles on the "floor".

 

Aideen changed into a new set of clothes - if only as an effort to preserve some modesty - as what she wore when she went into the beast had long been gone. She still had some dried, crusted blood and other unmentionables on her skin, but left them be.

 

Not like she had anywhere to bathe inside the beast anyway.

 

Once she lowered herself into the cavernous space, she noticed right away that there was light in the distance. She immediately went into a jog towards the light, and soon found the source, a slit-like opening between two nearly closed walls of flesh.

 

By now they were stiff, yet still soft enough for her to pry open with her bare hands. It took her some effort to do just that, but five minutes later, Aideen's head and shoulders emerged through the beast's nostrils, and back under the light of the sun.

 

She looked around, noticing the ships on both sides, and climbed out from the nostril, then from there atop the beast's snout. Aideen gave out a loud cry of exhilaration and jubilation at finally getting out, which attracted the attention of some people on the ships near the beast's carcass.

 

The massive sea serpent was as dead as it could be, its carcass kept suspended in the water by lines of ropes which ran between the ships on both sides of its body, forming a crude net to help support its weight as they towed the carcass to port.

 

Aideen had not waited for the ships to send a boat her way, but instead looked around before she noticed the ship she and grandpa Aarin took, far in the rear of the formation.

 

Without much hesitation, she ran over the length of the long, sinuous corpse of the beast, and when she reached the end, jumped into the sea, as she swam towards the ship. Some of the sailors had noticed her and lowered a rope ladder down side of the ship for her.

 

As for Aideen herself, she took her time swimming, and used the seawater to help cleanse the worst of the dried gunk off her while she could.

 

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