Chapter 242: Snake-spelunking

“What was that?” Will asked.

“What was…” Loth paused, glancing up at Will, who had previously been right beside her as they descended. For a brief instant she seemed to have sped up, flickering forward before returning to her normal speed. “I see.”

“There’s a field around Steve.” Will said as he landed. The gravity was very light, so they didn’t bother unhooking their flying gear.

“Yeah,” Loth said, pointing up at Steve’s head, which seemed to have frozen mid-bite around the island he’d been eating. “We’re on Steve-time now. The field must stretch about fifty feet around Steven in every direction.”

Will frowned.

“Shit, he’s gotta be on the snake with us.” the worm could use the extra time to prepare…he might be way further along than we thought…

“Extra time to gather Influence?” Loth asked.

“Yeah, a week at this speed would have to be…a year or so?” Will thought aloud, remembering how quickly Steve had been moving. An island would have to hold still for a long time for Steve to eat it.

“Or so.” Loth mused. “I’m not sure he could actually afford to do that, though. If he gave his followers more time to stop and think about their situation, the glaring problems would make themselves known. It’s more likely he is keeping his people outside the time-dilation field and in constant contention with Zodiac and Travis. Less time for them to think.”

“I don’t know, you might be giving humans too much credit. I thought the tooth fairy was real until I was eight.” Will said.

“Until you were eight? You disgust me, William Oh.” Loth said with a sneer, prompting Will to chuckle as they searched for a nearby constellation.

“…Wait, how old are you?” Will asked.

“Eight.”

“…Seriously?”

“Kobolds only live to fifteen or so.” Loth said.

Will looked up at Steve frozen in time. It was a creature that measured time in Coils. How much of Loth’s time am I wasting with this?

“I’m not gonna forget about getting you that dragon Sacrifice once this is over.”

“I didn’t think you would. Don’t forget I have Resistance padding out my lifespan though.”

Not a lot of it, though.

“…Right.”

With a renewed sense of urgency, they snagged a few of the smaller constellations and used their bodies to create some simple camouflage, aiming for Steve’s head.

They didn’t know enough about the prior state of the constellations that made their homes on Steve’s back, but it seemed like someone or something had cut swaths through them.

Some parts were empty, while other parts still had plenty of monsters. It didn’t seem to be even or have any pattern behind it. It was as if someone was randomly picking scales to clear, then going back once it was mostly clean.

As they got closer to the head, the cleared spots became more and more common, so they slowed down and took more care not to catch the attention of whoever was hunting on the back of Steve, because they probably weren’t friendly.

Small party. Unorganized.

They spotted them a couple days into the trip.

It’s Kyle and the others. Wow. I can’t believe they’re still alive…assuming they don’t have worms in their heads.

Judging by Kyle and Roger’s beards, they’d been doing this for quite some time in the two weeks since Will had seen them.

“…Pass.” Loth whispered, waving a clawed hand.

“Yeah, pass.” Will echoed. There was no sense getting embroiled with their shit. If they were still alive after all this was over, then they could get involved.

They waited for them to leave and changed through route to travel along the underside of Steve’s jaw. Kyle’s party seemed to have a preference for Steve’s back, possibly because the landmarks were easier to understand or perhaps a preconceived idea of what should be ‘up’ or ‘down’.

Once they reached the corner of Steve’s mouth, they were able to find a gap that led deeper.

“Hey, check this out.” Will said when they were a few miles into the mouth.

“Hmm?” Loth asked, holding out a torchbug.

Will manifested his Map and made it show the outside of Steve.

The automatically updated portion of Will’s map was far too small to show Steve in his entirety, but it was enough to show a strange conical depression in the small section of snake head it could make out above them, as if someone or something had carved out few miles of the snake’s brain.

“From the look of it, the necromancer hunted large constellations, converted them to undead, then used them as explosives to drill a hole through to Steve’s brain.” Loth said. “Poor thing.”

This novel’s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

“That’s like blowing up crickets against someone’s forehead until they die.”

“If you can get enough crickets,” Loth said with a shrug an instant before she began tumbling downward.

Will’s hand snapped out and grabbed Loth’s hood an instant before her backpack beetle began to hum, taking the stress off his hand as it began fighting the gravity.

They peered down into the hole and spotted a piece of island embedded in the flesh of Steve’s mouth, seemingly still radiating its unique gravity.

“You’ve got island stuck between your teeth, Steve.” Will muttered. “Shameful. Is this slovenly behavior how I raised you?”

They camped out that night a few miles into Steve’s mouth, locating a piece of island that could be used to cover the light of their fire in every direction.

Halfway through the night, something happened to Steve, because the world was suddenly on fire.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Will grunted, tucking his left hand in his armpit, as it burned like hell, while the rest of him…didn’t actually hurt that bad.

“Loth, you okay?”

“Hmmm.” Loth grunted, scanning the ground and flesh-sky above them, which were flickering with fire.

She pointed up.