“You slowly stumble your way down the crumbling, ancient staircase, tripping more than a few times on rocks and pebbles that must have fallen from the ceiling of this cave. In the all-consuming darkness, the only thing you could use to navigate were the far-off rumblings of some powerful and strange creature, bouncing off the walls and echoing from even further within the cave. “Eventually, your feet once again touch the cold, rocky the floor of the cave, signaling that your descent had finished. The echoing noise that you used to navigate was becoming louder and louder, more guttural...and it was clear that the staircase had emptied out into a wide, open room. Weapons drawn, you stumbled through the darkness, painfully aware of the presence of a large, powerful creature somewhere in this room. If you were stealthy enough, though, perhaps you could sneak your way around the beast and get to the treasure you had been seeking… "That was, until the cave was suddenly lit up by a cone of flame, barely stopping short of singeing your party alive. It lit the burnt out torches you were holding, though...only to reveal an absolutely massive, imposing red dragon, curled up in the center of this room. The creature's reptilian eyes stared down into your very soul, its piercing gaze making your knees go weak, before the creature let out a primal roar of anger... "Roll initiative.” “Oh shit, here we go!” Joey announced as he reached for his d20, the kangaroo absolutely stoked to see this night's session come to an explosive finish. For the past 3 hours, he and his two friends had been shooting and looting through a cave in this week's session of Dungeons and Dragons, and now they were reaching the final encounter of the evening: they were deep in the dragon's lair, and now face-to-face with its owner. Joey was playing a rogue; his rabbit friend Percy, sitting next to him, was a paladin; and Levi, the snake sitting across the table, was their party's cleric. They had spent the entire dungeon leveling up and looting new gear, and they were as ready for this fight as they could ever be! Hidden behind a trifold board was there human dungeon master, Alek. Alek was a very good DM, but he also was an absolute fanatic about everything being in character. and when Alek said everything, he meant EVERYTHING. Special outfits were provided, weapons were as realistic as possible, everybody had to use accents...that kind of thing. It was a little bit overwhelming at first, but as Joey and his friends went on, they found that it did make everything that little bit more enjoyable! Preparing for their battle, Alek lined up the initiatives everyone that had rolled and assigned turn orders before rolling his own and officially starting the battle. Joey had rolled a 19, which put him well ahead of everyone else, even the dragon; so he it was up first. Considering that the dragon was only about 20 feet away, Joey thought for a few moments, before deciding to use a cunning action to dash away from danger. A smart move, to be sure. In a safer position, Joey decided to fire an arrow from the short bow he was holding...the dragon's armor class was extremely high, and he would need to roll something quite large in order to even hit the dragon, let alone do any sort of damage! The kangaroo picked up his d20 once more, jostling it around in his hand for a little bit before rolling it out onto the table. Alek chuckled as he saw that the kangaroo had rolled a seven, not even bothering to tell Joey that he had missed; his laugh had said everything the party needed to know. With that unsuccessful attack, the rogue's turn had ended, and the initiative turned to Percy's paladin to land the first blow. “Joey, why'd you waste all your dice luck on rolling initiative?” the rabbit joked, before leaning back in his chair and figuring out what he would do exactly. “Let's see...well, I'm definitely going to use my extra attack to hit twice. Uhh...I'll move 10 feet towards it and then use my greatsword.” Percy pulled out his own D20, rolling a 21 to hit with his bonus. Normally that would easily have hit, but considering how tough the dragon was, it barely landed. But it did! “Roll for damage." Alek calmly said from behind his tri-fold board. He heard the clanking of a dice on a table once more, before Percy spoke again. “2 and 3, plus strength...so 26.” The first hit that the party landed. It wasn't as meaty as Peter would have liked, but that's what his extra attack was for! He rolled once more to hit, groaning as he saw that he only rolled an 9. Combined with his proficiency bonus, that was 15. He looked anxiously at Alek as he calculated up the hit, hoping 15 would be enough to at least land a glancing blow… “That misses.” “Ah, dammit.” the rabbit cursed as he slumped back in his chair, his turn ending on a somewhat sour note with that miss; especially considering Levi head only rolled a six on initiative, which meant that the dragon went before him. Not exactly a good note to leave off on! “All right...my turn.” Alek said, stretching his arms are letting out a little bit of a yawn before he decided what to do. “Well, Joey, the dragon obviously has darkvision, so even though you dashed away, it can still see you…” he said, at the same time using a dimmer switch on his phone to lower the light level in the room. “Dammit…” the kangaroo muttered as Alek moved the dragon's piece on the battle map right up to his rogue, easily dwarfing Joey's diminutive character. “The dragon uses its bite attack on Joey!” Alek said from behind his display board, making the kangaroo sweat just a little bit as he rolled to hit. Joey started to sweat even more as he watched his dungeon master's eyebrows raise up after rolling, before a sinister sort of smile crept across the human's face. “Well, that's a nat 20.” he calmly said, all three of his players swearing and starting to mumble amongst themselves. “Uhhmmm…” Alek started to say aloud, not expecting to roll a natural 20 on his first turn in the combat encounter! He thought for a few more moments, each second making Joey more and more nervous with what was about to happen to his character, before he spoke again. “The bite lands...but it does much more than that! Joey is snatched up by the dragon's jaws, trapped in the prison of its mouth for a few seconds before being swallowed whole and alive, barely a snack for the mighty beast.” Alek announced, with a fervor and inflection that let his party know exactly how dire Joey's situation was. The party gasped at this revelation, not even sure how this would play out in the battle! How would they save their rogue in time, without hurting him? What would happen if they didn't save him? But it seemed Alek wasn't done yet. He turned to Joey, before standing up out of his chair, looming over the small kangaroo with his much taller, much wider human frame. He wordessly reached out and snatched up the kangaroo, eliciting a gasp from the two other members of the party as he lifted up Joey like a sack of potatoes. “H-hey! What are you-” Joey cried out, before he watched as Alek opened his jaws wide, wider than a human probably should have been able to, then shoved Joey's head right into his mouth! The human's lips pursed tight around the kangaroo's neck, his grip making sure Joey didn't squirm too much as his tongue slobbered all over the kangaroo's face. Joey was assaulted by an overwhelming amount of stimuli all at once; the heat inside his friend's mouth, the wet, sticky saliva being smeared all over his fur, the stale, somewhat acidic breath wafting up from the back of Alek's throat. Joey sputtered as some of the human's spit got in his own mouth, distracted by it for a few moments, enough for Alek to start shoving the rest of the kangaroo right down his throat! *glllk* The whole party could hear as Alek took a big, hearty swallow, watching as Joey's head sank into the human's throat, bulging it out in a way that was almost comical to look at. His cries and protests were now mostly muffled under the human's skin, but even with Alek's grip on the kangaroo being quite tight, they could still see how much of a fight he was putting up. “Uhh...maybe this is a bit too far?” Percy asked, not wanting to break character, but somewhat concerned for the safety of his friend! Alek ignored him, simply shoving a bit more of Joey down his greasy gullet before making his way back to his chair and sitting down. Half of the kangaroo's body still awkwardly stuck out of his mouth, Joey's long legs and tail doing their best to wiggle and squirm and try to free the kangaroo from his friend's throat! As Alek continued working Joey into his throat, the human pointed at Levi, signaling that it was the cleric's turn. The snake was a bit confused that the party was just moving on, with what was happening right now, but Alek seemed pretty intent on making sure the game went on, even as one of his players was on a trip down his gullet! “Uuuuuuhhhh…” Levi droned aloud, not really having taken the time to think about his turn with what had just happened! He couldn't take his eyes off Alek either, as he was sitting right next to him, and could hear every single swallow and squirm that was happening inside of his body. The human's stomach was starting to bulge out with Joey's form as the kangaroo continued his journey into his friend, the only thing left of him that his friends could see being his long, furry gray tail...and even that was being slurped up with remarkable efficiency. Joey's hearing was mostly overwhelmed by the gurgling and churning of the stomach around him as his head was deposited into the hungry chamber, but he could still somewhat make out what was happening in their game if he listened close enough. He had mostly given up on squirming at this point, hoping this was just a very realistic part of the roleplay! His fur was matted and covered in spit and stomach slime, and the stench of acid was making his nose burn a little bit. He just hoped that his friends could defeat the dragon without him… Levi flipped through his spellbook for a moment, before finding a spell that probably would get something going. He tried to cast Cure Wounds on Joey, but considering he was inside of a dragon right now...the snake couldn't really do anything. So Levi just decided to go the damage route for now, and the only real damaging spell he had was Harm. “Okay, um, I'll cast Harm.” the snake said. He was hoping that the dragon's constitution was low enough that he could score a big hit on the creature...at worst, casting the spell would give them an idea of what they were dealing with. Levi watched as Alek took another thick swallow, only the tip of Joey's tail sticking out of his lips at this moment...before casually grabbing a die and rolling it. His mouth was still full, so he couldn't say anything, but he wagged his finger at Levi, signaling that the dragon had not failed his constitution saving throw. “Dammit…” the cleric said, unable to do anything but watch as Alek finished off Joey, slurping his tail up in a loud, obnoxious fashion. His stomach was growing at an impressive pace underneath the table; thankfully, Levi and Percy wouldn't actually be looking at it unless they sought it out. One last swallow finally cleared the human's throat, Alek letting out a sigh of relief before thumping at his gut in a proud fashion. “Aaahhh...much better. Joey, take 2d10 acid damage.” he calmly said, as if the person he was talking to wasn't even in his stomach right now! “What?” Joey said from inside his friend's stomach, the kangaroo curled up in an awkward position due to the lack of space inside. Alek's stomach was hot, humid, and not particularly pleasant-smelling either, but the thing that was most apparent was the tightness. The stomach walls constantly pushed on him from all sides, making all sorts of wet, sloppy noises as they massaged and rubbed against the kangaroo. But his exclamation wasn't about that, necessarily: it was that 2d10 was a lot of damage! Especially for a squishy rogue like Joey. “I...uh...I don't have my dice in here with me, Alek.” the kangaroo shouted, not sure if the human could hear him over all the sounds his belly was making. “Also, let me out!! It doesn't need to be this...ergh...realistic…” Alek ignored his friend's protests, simply picking up one of the dice that Joey had left on the table and using it to roll himself. “Ooh, seven. That's a lot of *UUuuuuhhhHHHHhhhhrrrrppp* damage!" the human said, with a strange intonation of...almost glee that Joey was taking that much damage! Levi swore he could see some drool dribbling down the human's lips, and he felt like Alek might have been enjoying this a little bit too much... “What did you think would happen when you stumbled into the cave of a red dragon?” Alek taunted in response to the kangaroo's repeated requests to be let out. He couldn't help but rub and thump at his belly every now and again, just enjoying the sensations of being full inbetween bouts of teasing his meal. “Don't worry, this dragon is a lot less beefy than he looks. I am sure the rest of your party will get you out, no problem…” With that half-hearted reassurance, the game's turn passed to Percy, considering that Joey was currently...incapacitated. His rogue didn't have that much health, and Joey really didn't want to know what would happen if it hit 0-both in the game and in real life! He kept up his wiggling and squirming the best he could, but he was starting to already feel a bit tired out due to the environment around him. Slowly, he was starting to become a bystander in the action... “Percy, you can see the struggles of your rogue friend inside the dragon if you look close enough at its underbelly. They are frantic and a bit hard to look at. What will you do?” Alek said, trying to keep Joey's squirming down inside of him at the same time he was teasing the rabbit with that bit of flavor text. The rabbit squirmed in his seat a little bit, not because he was flustered by it or anything, but because he could hear Joey kicking around in his friend’s belly while he said that! “Eugh…” he exclaimed as he flipped through his character sheet, looking for a possible different weapon to use; the greatsword wasn't bad, but if he could do different types of damage, that would certainly help now that they were down a player. He couldn't find anything specifically elemental, but he did remember that he spent a spell slot for Divine Smite way back at his second level! The extra damage it would do was 2d8, certainly not a small buff to his already pretty strong greatsword. “All right, I'll give him another swing with the greatsword, but this time I'll add Divine Smite.” The rabbit said, hoping to just hit the dragon for as much as possible and get Levi to tank him for the time being. He rolled a 17 to hit, a 23 with his proficiency bonus, which was an easy hit to land - and it did. Now, his damage roll would hopefully deal a pretty meaty blow. A 4 and a 2 on his 2d6 with the greatsword wasn't crazy, but 24 damage overall was not anything to sneeze at. Plus the extra 2d8? They could definitely take down this dragon now! Percy searched for his d8 for a few seconds, not particularly used to using that specific die, finding it a few seconds later; then, he took a little bit of a breath before he rolled his first extra damage. 3. Not exactly what he was looking for. The second roll was a bit more liberal, however: a nice, fat 7, to bring his total damage to 34. He was definitely doing his job as a paladin! Though, the dragon’s turn was next; he would have to wait a little bit for Levi to get his word in edgewise… “34! Let's go, Percy!” came Joey's voice from inside Alek’s stomach. The fact that the kangaroo could still hear what was going on caught Percy a little bit off guard, before an uneasy chuckle escaped from his lips. Alek didn't look as happy, however; he thumped at his belly with a fist, before muttering something at to the kangaroo inside of him. “Hush, you’re blinded and restrained…” he said...turned out being eaten resulted in quite a few debuffs for the kangaroo! In addition to these status inflictions the kangaroo had to deal with, Joey was also starting to feel a little bit of an uncomfortable tingling sensation throughout most of his body. It felt like all of his skin was dealing with the feeling of pins and needles...it made him want to itch! The initiative turned to the great dragon, and Alek hid behind his trifold once again, deciding exactly how he would go about this. There was already one player...disposed of, at least for the moment...so who would he target next? Obviously, the paladin presented the most immediate danger to his dragon, but he could be dealt with later. No, you always had to go for the healer, that was just basic RPG logic. Levi was next. “The dragon moves 20 feet to the east, standing right in front of Levi. It uses its claw attack, and…” the human trailed off as he rolled the dice behind his board, expecting to miss right after getting a natural 20! Surprisingly, though, he rolled an overall 16, enough that Alek had to ask what the cleric’s armor class was to make sure if it hit or not. “16,” Levi replied to Alek’s question, the human trying his hardest to hide a smile as he heard that he had tied the cleric’s AC exactly. And, when it tied, it hit! “Oooh, that's just barely a hit…” Alek said, trying his best to fake a wince while saying that. “ let's see how much damage you'll be taking…” The dragon's claw attack was a 2d6+8, so Alek quickly rolled that damage up, coming out with a two and a three for an overall damage of 13. Definitely not as bad as it could have been, considering that Alek was going a bit light at first. The dragon definitely had a few tricks up its sleeve still waiting to be used…and not just the ones that involved eating his players! Levi let out a sigh of relief as he heard what the damage was, fully expecting to be one-hit-killed or, at worst, joining Joey in the dragon's stomach after that attack! Levi had been thinking about what it would be best for him to do for quite a while. He assumed that he only had one turn to live, so he had one shot to cast something that would be actually useful for Percy to take down the dragon with. But with the time he had to think, the cleric was prepared. He knew exactly what he was going to do. “I’ll cast Regenerate on Percy.” the snake said, with an almost blasé disconnection from what he said. Regenerate was a very powerful transmutation; less so because Percy was already at full health, but the spell also had a lasting healing effect that would apply at the beginning of each of the paladin’s turns, even after Levi was dead. A consistent source of HP like that would be very useful to Percy for the rest of the fight, for which both of them thought that Percy would be the only party member remaining. With that relatively quick turn from the cleric, the initiative once again passed to Percy to deal out the damage. In the time that Levi was taking his turn, and the dragon was taking his, Percy had silently been figuring out which of his weapons and attack would deal the most damage on average. He had more than enough time to check and double-check his work, and he was a bit surprised to see that his first choice, the greatsword, was actually way to go! For pure damage, anyway. Elemental stuff was mostly out of the question, considering it was a red dragon, so flames wouldn't work, and most of the other elements would be stopped or nerfed by the dragon’s incredible armor. “I'll...I guess I’ll just whack him again. Throw Divine Smite in there, as well.” Percy said, in an aloof fashion, like he expected this battle to be over in a couple of turns. It was almost like the two friends had already forgotten what had just transpired in front of them! Joey certainly hadn't, however, considering he was still stewing in Alek’s belly. He was starting to lose track of time from how long he'd been in here, and relying on whose turn it was wasn't that helpful, either, considering that the length of a turn could wildly vary from character to character. All he knew was that by the second, the heat inside at this chamber was continually smothering him, and there was so much stimulation from the walls rubbing and pressing against him that his skin was starting to go numb. Or maybe that was...digestion setting in...no! There was no way that his friend would just gurgle him up like nothing but a meal! This just had to be a very elaborate part of the roleplay. There was one thing keeping him from totally believing that, though; the fact that he was starting to hear something sizzling around him… “*HHhhuuuUUUUuuurrrppphhh!*...’scuse me.” Alek rudely belched out in the middle of Percy's turn, not even making an effort to stifle the burp or cover his mouth or anything! He was a very jocky sort of DM, and loved to see his players squirm whenever he did something so rude like that...he also, of course, loved feeling his players squirm around in his gut as well! “Better hurry up, I think he is starting to get a little...gurgled in there. Tasted better going down, that's for sure~” he unashamedly teased his players, reaching a hand below the table and rubbing at his gut as he said that. He could feel his stomach walls tightening around his meal, his digestive system really starting to get to work on the kangaroo now. It would take a long while for him to digest the kangaroo, though...maybe even days! Plenty of time for his players to save Joey...if they could. Percy tacked on another 28 damage, and then it was the dragon’s turn once more. Alek was actually a bit concerned with the damage output he was seeing, and decided that he needed to kick it up a notch. So he positioned the dragon right in front of the two party members that were left, and used the dragon’s most powerful attack: his famous, well, infamous attack, that terrifying fire breath. “You both are going to have to make a dexterity saving throw.” Alek calmly said. Saving throws were real business. This attack was probably going to do a lot of damage if it failed, and would probably still do a lot even if they succeeded. The two players rolled at the same time, Percy breathing a sigh of relief as he saw that he passed his - but across the table, Levi wasn't so jubilant. He rolled pretty low, and as a result, he took the full brunt of the attack...65 damage, more than enough to knock his cleric unconscious. “Fuuuuck...well, good luck, Percy.” the snake said as calmly as he could, before he started to get up out of his chair. Alek’s protocol was that when they player was knocked unconscious or killed, they were to leave the table so that they couldn't influence the game at all from the grave. Levi did just that, the snake quickly grabbing his things and slithering towards the staircase in the back of the room. That left just Percy and Alek...and, well, Joey too. But he wasn't really all there. His hearing had been mostly taken up by that sizzling sound now, and unbeknownst to the kangaroo, that sound was coming from his fur being digested right off his body! If he put two and two together, he could probably figure out where exactly it was coming from...but he didn't really want to think about that right now. He was thinking about the game, and how tight it was in this stomach, and how the stinging fluids in the chamber were right up around his neck...god, Percy really needed to finish off this dragon already! Percy still took damage from the fire breath, but because he hit the saving throw, it was nowhere near enough to take him down, thankfully. Looking at his HP, though, he knew that he couldn't take a few more blows, even if he is passed the saving throws on all of them. At this point it was really just blindly spamming his greatsword and hoping that the dragon’s HP pool was low enough that he could kill it before it killed him. This attack didn't hit. Percy rolled a 7, not nearly enough to land on the dragon's AC. The rabbit let out a deep sigh when he saw what he rolled; he knew that if he missed at all, the encounter was pretty much over. He would have to rely on the dragon missing as well...otherwise Joey would be doomed. Well, his rogue would be, anyway...at least, that's what Percy thought! Alek could feel every kick and squirm that Joey made inside of him -- but there weren’t many happening anymore. The kangaroo was definitely still conscious, but he was so drained of energy that he could only make weak wiggles and whines and not much else. His fur continued to sizzle, falling off of his skin and floating in the soupy stomach slop that surrounded the roo. It was so tight and suffocating in here, and his strength was so sapped by the human's digestive tract… Alek smiled as he started his turn. "The dragon will use his multiattack." he said calmly, revealing the last ace the dragon had up his sleeve. The multiattack came in three parts: one bite, and two slashes with its claws. If all three of them, hell, if two of them hit, Percy was probably a goner. Alek started to roll; the bite hit with ease, doing 23 damage, and the first claw did as well, tacking on 13 damage. Alek didn't even need to roll for the third claw; he knew that Percy was a goner. “Damn, is that really how it's going to end?” the rabbit said, looking down at his sheet a few times to make sure that he was absolutely, completely dead with no way to come back. He let out a long, deep sigh, before getting up from the table just as Levi had done, packing up his stuff and turning towards the staircase. “Sorry, Joey. See you next week?” Joey had no idea what was going on. He could barely hear anything at this point over the churning and squelching of the stomach around him. He did manage to barely make out one word that Percy said, though: sorry. That one word threw the kangaroo into a frenzy because of its implications, Joey kicking and shoving and pressing against the walls in a last-ditch attempt to get Alek to spit him out. From inside, Joey felt like he was moving mountains, but to Alek, it was barely more than a minor inconvenience. “ Yeah, don't *UUUuuurrrpphh* worry, I'll let him out in an hour or so.” the human responded (hoping that Percy wouldn’t notice the strands of gray fur he had just belched up), waving Percy out the door and sitting motionless until he heard his front door close and lock. “Pfft. That was easy.” he laughed as soon as it did, looking down to his slightly smaller, still kicking belly with amusement. He cleared his throat before he started speaking. “Having defeated the rogue’s friends, the dragon lets out a triumphant roar, feeling the weak squirms of the kangaroo deep within his guts. It would take days, maybe even weeks for the lizard’s tract to fully break down and absorb the small meal he had captured, feeling it squirm and writhe inside of him as it is slowly broken down into nutrition for the powerful lizard's body.” Joey could hear the narration through the churning of the stomach around him, but only scarcely. It inspired him to squirm even further, weakly whining to be let out as he failed to make any more meaningful squirms inside the pit of his friend’s stomach. Digestion was beginning to set in for real now, and the sizzling became overwhelming; Alek’s digestive enzymes had been rubbed and massaged into every part of the kangaroo’s tasty body, and Joey could do little more than wiggle as he felt the tight chamber continue to squeeze and collapse in on him…