Harmon drifted, half asleep, as he continued to slide down through the tight confines of Izanami's umbilical throat. When he finally fell into the belly of her avatar, he could barely move his arms and legs. His energy was sapped and he lay upside down for some time before he found his strength returning and righted himself to a sitting position, leaning back staring at a thin pale shaft of light coming through the navel. The avatar was still for some time and he felt a little impatient as he waited for it to stir. He tried briefly to see if he could force his way out, but the folds of the inner navel held tight when he attempted to pry them apart. So, he sat, listening to the sound of water and rustling trees in the endless swamp outside. He pressed his face to the small opening and peered out into Tenebrosa Palus.
The moon's pale face peered over the twisted trees and broken ruins, light glimmering on the water. There were no sounds of insects or wildlife. The breeze carried only the dank smell of stagnant pools and moss covered trees. Harmon wondered if there was anything alive in this world that wasn't a plant. He supposed the avatars themselves were some form of life, but they were not part of any ecosystem. What purpose could they possibly serve? Unless...perhaps they were like plants themselves?
"Having deep thoughts?" Izanami's voice rumbled through the walls of her stomach and Harmon started, falling back.
The avatar body shifted and he braced himself as it stood.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"A few miles from the temple," Izanami replied, "That is probably a good place to start looking for Chelsey. If she's becoming more active, then she will probably have her avatar positioned in the temple or close by to make her offerings."
"Offerings," Harmon muttered, shaking his head, "Alright...lets go then."
Izanami giggled, one of her long appendages curling under her slightly bulging abdomen.
"Don't worry," she said, "I'll keep you safe."
"Safe..." Harmon scoffed, "...yea, feeling very safe right now."
They crossed the swamp in relative silence, Izanami's long legs striding through the deep water as easily as one might walk through muddy puddles. Harmon tried not to think about how ridiculous he looked in his current position as he swayed back and forth inside her belly. His head stuck out of her belly button, the folds uncomfortably tight around his neck so that he had to keep his hands gripping the lower lip to keep it from choking him.
They came to the edge of a high rise and Izanami stopped, taking a sharp breath. Harmon's breath caught in his throat as he saw it as well. The last time they had been to the ruins of the temple, he had only been able to see part of it, but now it stretched out below them and it was greater than he could have imagined.
It had to be more than a mile across. A hexagon of massive walls surrounded a great dome that emerged like the egg of a planet being born from the earth. But that was not what caused them to stare. Tall figures walked all along the walls, ushering smaller shapes along between them. There were more than Harmon could count and the men with them must have numbered in the hundreds.
"They're rebuilding it," Izanami whispered, her body trembling, sending deep vibrations down through her belly, shaking Harmon to his bones.
"Rebuilding the temple?" Harmon asked, "Why?"
"To summon him," she said, "To summon Ventrivoroth."
"Oh..." Harmon nodded, staring down at the army of avatars and the hundreds of young men working beside them, "...well, shit."
"There should not be so many," Izanami said, "Tanaya should have felt this happening. How could so many be awakened and gather here without her notice?"
"Maybe she's fallen out of favor with your God," Harmon said dryly, "You've been borrowing this power from him all this time, but you sound almost like you're afraid of him. Shouldn't you be happy that he's coming back?"
Izanami tensed and her stomach suddenly squeezed around Harmon, trapping him tightly and forcing him to cry out in pain. She stopped in an instant, relaxing her abdominal muscles.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly, "I didn't mean that."
"Sure as shit felt like you did," Harmon croaked, forcing his arms through the opening and pulling himself up till his upper body was out, "Enough of this. I'm not riding in here the whole way. Let me out."
"Alright," she relented, offering a tentacle for him to grab before lifting him up to her shoulder where he sat, tentatively sliding one arm around her giant neck through her long black hair to balance himself.
Harmon took a deep breath, "The Hell was that all about? You could have killed me in there."
"I know we're playing with fire," Izanami said, her voice less booming but still startling in it's volume as it came up from her giant avatar body, "...and I know that Ventrivoroth is not a force for good. I have always known that."
"But you still eat people," Harmon said grimly, "And you still come here and give them to your priestess. And she feeds him somehow. You've been giving him power your entire life."
"Because he gives us power in return. He gives me...power. Do you understand?"
"Everyone wants power."
"Men want power, because they don't realize how much they already have," Izanami turned her head, her huge dark eyes glaring, "If I were a normal woman, I would not stand a chance against a man like you. You would be two or three or even four times stronger than I am. Even smaller men would overpower me easily. This is because your God made us this way. He made men strong and he made women weak."
"That's not true," Harmon interjected, "Women can be strong."
"Don't soothe me with platitudes. I understand that we were made with a purpose. That men and women are two sides of a coin. The ability to give birth, to create new life, is essential. But while we make new life, the men who are meant to protect it can use their power for themselves instead. How can a woman selfishly use her power? How can you selfishly give life? Ventrivoroth has reversed it. He has taken the burden of creation given to us and turned it into a gift that will let us be both mothers and protectors when we chose."
"And who are you protecting?" Harmon asked, "Those men down there have mothers. All of you might one day have sons. Do you all consent to having your sons taken away? Or is this a one generation thing?"
"You exaggerate," Izanami replied, "Not all men will be taken and there will always be conflict over those that are. When the atomic bomb was created, did all men consent? They knew that it could be used for destruction, but it can also be harnessed to create energy."
"So this is your bomb? Ventrivoroth, the God of...devouring? And this event playing out in front of us is going to be your Hiroshima and Nagasaki?"
"It will be theirs," Izanami looked out over the temple, "unless we can do something to stop them."
"Well that's going to be pretty damned hard with only you and me," Harmon said dryly.
They were silent for a moment, Harmon marveling quietly at her beauty, even in this gigantic form, while simultaneously thinking of how to use her size and strength to assault the army below them. Then, it occurred to him that he was thinking backwards. It shouldn't have been surprising after all that had happened that he had somehow allowed himself to accept his utter helplessness against the creatures he was dealing with. In fact, he'd been so ashamed of allowing himself to be swallowed up by not one but two women that he'd almost entirely forgotten that it wasn't his physical abilities that had gotten him into this line of work. Reasserting his confidence just a little, Harmon stood up on Izanami's shoulder, peering out over the vastness before them and then quickly slid down her arm, dropping into the waist deep water.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm going down there," he replied, moving to a patch of weeds and beginning the process of camoflauging himself with mud and plantlife, "If you go down, you could hide me inside you, but you'll have to put on an act and hope that none of them figures out you're not a part of the group. If I go down without you, I'll be practically invisible. I can get a good look at the perimeter and try to talk to some of the men to see what they're planning."
"If you get caught, you'll die," Izanami warned, leaning down to inspect him more closely.
"That's true," Harmon nodded, "But I was already running that risk with our plan to get me back to Dunwich. Besides, most of those avatars are newly awakened, right? That means they can't see. Only the big ones that look more fully developed like you can open their eyes and I can avoid those."
"At least let me come with you. I'll stay back and watch over you."
"You'll stick out like a sore thumb," Harmon shook his head, "No, you need to stay here. I'll be back in a few hours. Unfortunately, I don't have a watch or a phone on me to tell the time with and I don't think that moon is going to move anytime soon."
"It phases," Izanami said, looking up into the sky, "That's the only way to tell the time here. It is full at midday and at night it exclipses."
"Alright," Harmon looked up, "Then I'll be back before the eclipse."
"Be careful," Izanami bent down and kissed him, his entire head almost vanishing between her lips as she did.
Harmon coughed and sputtered, taken by surprise. He glared up at her, but then his gaze softened and he reached out, touching her cheek.
"I'll see you soon," he said.
* * *
Harmon needed only a moment to focus himself before he began the ascent into the marshland below. Despite having been assured that there were no other living things in the wilderness, he tried to keep himself out of the water to avoid washing off his camoflauge. It was hard not to wonder though, staring across the strangely slow moving river, it’s clear surface shifting noiselessly as he picked his way through the tall reeds along it’s edge.
Upon reaching the bottom of the valley, Harmon looked back, just barely able to see Izanami’s statuesque form upon the edge of the rise, her long black hair waving gently in the breeze. She couldn’t see him, although he was sure she had been trying to follow him with her eyes. That was comforting in some way. The others wouldn’t be looking for him at all, so if she couldn’t see him, it was unlikely that others would be able to pick him out if he continued to move carefully.
He reached the edge of the temple by the time the moon had been swallowed halfway into the sky around it. Harmon managed to find a shallow spot along the river where he could safely cross, then scrambled up one of the twisted trees that had grown up near the temple walls. Several of the brances stretched over the top and he shimmied along the thickest one, keeping low and well concealed by the surrounding foliage until he could see down into the interior of the ruins.
It wasn’t as busy below as it had appeared from the distance, but Harmon did immediately spot two smaller avatars in a state of semi rest by the look of them. Each was probably around twelve to fifteen feet tall, but both of their stomachs looked relatively flat and empty and their skin had a greyish hue. Their eyes were closed and one lacked even a mouth.
Using a thick vine, Harmon slowly slid down atop the outer wall then moved at a crouch along it until he spotted a patrol coming his way at which point he ducked down. The avatar leading the group of tired, frightened looking men had long blonde hair like spun gold. Her wide blue eyes were open and her thick full lips were quirked in a sly grin. She was a twenty footer, close in size to Izamami, but her features were less fully formed, her face lacking a nose. Her stomach sported a tight, man-sized bulge in the middle which squirmed slightly as she walked, but didn’t bounce or sway.
The men behind her followed in what looked like a drunken haze, stumbling here and there, but making very little noise. Harmon wondered if they were all under the influence of some sort of spell, or if perhaps the air of this place did something to make them more docile. He hadn’t noticed anything himself when he’d been here previously, but then he didn’t know how long any of them had been kept captive. He waited for them to pass, then moved along, searching for Chelsey.
The question of what was happening to the men was answered for him an hour or so into his scouting when he heard a small commotion and noticed an avatar kneeling before a group of men. She arched her back, pushing out their bulging belly until a head crowned from her navels and she slowly pulled a small, limp figure out and gently lay him on the ground on a makeshift stretcher. The little man was immediately given water by the other men, then hoisted up and taken through a low door into the temple dome. After he left, the avatar cast her eyes upon the group, then reached out and plucked a man from the middle. He struggled for a moment, but was silenced by the shouts of the others. She brought him up to her stomach and pushed him head first into her belly button, her stomach once again bulging as he was sucked inside. She then stood and gestured for the group to head into the temple dome, following after them.
Batteries, Harmon thought, they’re using them like batteries. He remembered what Chelsey had told him about needing life energy to move and see through her avatar body. A more experienced ventrimancer like Izanami could apparently use stored up energy to manipulater her otherworldly body, but with newer welps that was too difficult. This was probably a training ground for them to practice and grow until they could expand their operation enough to provide the energy needed to summon their God. But then what? Harmon crawled over a taller section of the wall then carefully climbed down along a collapsed area, vanishing into the rubble as he got closer to the actual dome.
The dome loomed over him, the quarter moon just visible behind it’s horizon. It was getting late. He likely only had a few hours to get back to Izanami. Some of the sleeping avatars were beginning to stir. That made sense, considering that their real world counterparts were more likely to seek prey under cover of dark. Harmon wondered just how many there could be and where they were all coming from. When he’d first entered Tenebrosa Palus, he’d seen some scattered throughout the marshland. If those were being awakened, then they could be migrating towards the temple. He didn’t want to be caught by surprise of he were leaving and happened to cross paths with one or more wandering in. Still...the problem remained...he hadn’t found Chelsey.
The sound of an agitated male voice caught his attention then, followed by heavy footfalls coming his way. He was relatively concealed at the moment, so rather than look around wildly for a direction to flee, he hunkered down where he was between several large toppled stones and waited. A tall, dark skinned avatar walked slowly past, stopping near the entrance to the dome with a small pale head sticking out from it’s bulging middle.
“So you can find someone else,” the little man said angrily, trying to twist his head so as to look up at the avatar’s face, “You heard what she said. You’re sending me back up. You can do what you want with the rest of these shmucks, but agents are off limits. We let your monster queen do as she likes and you move us from place to place. That’s the deal. You break it and we start finding and executing every freak one of you in your sleep.”
“Aww,” the avatar smiled broadly, her tentacles wrapping around her belly, cradling the man inside, “You sure you wanna leave? Giant naked bitches all over this motha and you tellin me a straight, good lookin boy like you wants out? Come on. I know you like the view.”
“I prefer my bitches without tentacles,” the man replied sharply, “And if you want me so fucking bad, you can fuck me like a normal woman...outside of your stomach.”
“Damn!” the avatar laughed, “Alright, you got me. I send you back, but I ain’t gonna make no promises for a second date. Don’t pretend you ain’t liking this.”
The man grunted painfully as the avatar used her other tentacle to pull the upper lip of her navel up and Harmon watched as the man’s face slid down into the folds of her navel. He shouted something as it squeezed shut, but Harmon couldn’t tell what he’d said. After a few minutes of muffled shouts as the avatar’s stomach kicked and wriggled, it suddenly shrank all at once, become perfectly flat and toned. She ran her tentacles around her navel and chuckled before slowly sitting down and closing her eyes. Harmon waited until her brown skin became an ashy grey before he climbed back up and over the rubble to start making his way back, but he stopped short when he noticed a pale shape leaning against the outside of the broken wall. He slowly came around, using the rubble and then the vegetation to keep himself hidden until he was looking at another avatar. He recognized this one and was shocked to see a bulge in her lower abdomen, moving slowly as he greyish skin began to turn more pale, freckles appearing as her eyes opened.

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