Chapter 3: Acid Test
The grit of the conversation outside was a dull scrape against the burning reality within. Borin floated—no, was suspended—in a hot, soupy darkness where every second etched itself onto his skin. The acidic tingle had become a steady, low-grade burn. He could feel the wool of his tunic dissolving thread by thread, a disconcerting sloughing sensation against his back and shoulders. The grease Grok had applied was long gone, emulsified into the churning fluid, leaving him raw and exposed. He’d given up yelling. His throat was a ragged ruin from swallowing fumes and screaming. Now he just breathed in shallow, desperate sips through the reed, each inhale tasting of corrosion and orc.
His world was sound and pressure. The distant, distorted voices of the border guards. The ever-present gurgle and slosh, a constant churning reminder of the organ's purpose. And the heartbeat—a deep, relentless thump-thump-thump that vibrated through the fluid and into his bones, a metronome counting down his potential digestion.
Then, a new pressure. Grok was moving forward in the queue. Each step sent waves through the stomach, sloshing the acidic broth over Borin's face. He squeezed his eyes shut, the burn on his eyelids a fresh agony. He heard a voice, clearer now, sharp with bureaucratic boredom.
"Purpose of entry into Eldoria?"
"Day labor," Grok rumbled, his voice a comforting vibration. "My cousin's farm.Garlic harvest."
There was a grunt, the shuffling of papers. Borin held perfectly still, a curled, burning statue in the wet dark. He heard the clink of armor as the guard stepped closer.
"Any contraband?Weapons? Spirits? Undeclared livestock?"
"Just me," Grok said, and Borin could hear the smile in his voice. The idiot was enjoying this.
"Open the satchel."
Rustling. The weight on Borin's world shifted as Grok hefted his pack onto something, probably a inspection table. He felt a brief, lessening of the omnipresent squeeze. A moment of relief, immediately shattered by a sharp, prodding impact against the stomach wall just above his head.
Thump.
The guard was knocking.
"Feeling a bit stout, aren't you?" The guard's voice was laced with a smirk. "Big breakfast?"
The prod came again, harder this time. Borin jerked in his tight space, his elbow knocking against a pulsing mound of tissue. The fluid sloshed violently.
"Oh, aye," Grok said, his tone shifting. A strain entered it. "Ate something... bad. I think.Feels wrong."
Another prod, this one a deliberate press that indented the wall. Borin felt the muscular tissue tighten around him in reflex, squeezing the air from his lungs in a bubbling gasp. The reed slipped for a terrifying second, and he took in a mouthful of pure, liquid burn. He choked, sputtering, his body convulsing involuntarily. The spasms sent fresh ripples through the chamber.
"You alright?" the guard asked, drawing his hand back.
"It's... cramping," Grok moaned, and his performance was catastrophically convincing because it wasn't all performance. Borin's thrashing was causing genuine distress. Grok's belly gave an audible, liquid gurgle, a long, deep glorp that sounded painful.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Grok groaned, leaning over slightly.
The constriction around Borin became violent. It was no longer the slow, rhythmic kneading of digestion. This was a clenching spasm, a ring of muscle tightening like a fist around the top of the stomach, trying to expel its contents. Borin was crushed. His ribs creaked. The acidic broth was forced into his nose, his ears. He was drowning in it.
He couldn't breathe. The reed was useless, blocked by the churning, rising fluid. He clawed in the dark, his fingers finding only slick, unyielding flesh.This was it. Not digestion. Suffocation in a vat of orc-bile during a poorly acted farce.
"Get back!" the guard barked, his voice tinged with disgust and sudden alarm.
The crushing pressure reached its peak. Borin’s vision, already black, sparked with tiny, desperate stars. Then, with a wet, seismic heave from Grok, the pressure reversed.
It wasn't release. It was a different kind of violence.
Everything surged upwards.
The world inverted in a roaring, churning maelstrom. Borin was flung against the roof of the stomach, then slammed back down as Grok’s body convulsed. The acid swirled around him like a furious tide. He tasted it everywhere—a sour, brutal burn that coated his tongue, his throat, the back of his nose.
Then, from above, a cataclysm.
It was the sound of a mountain splitting. A window rattling, soul-deep HUUUUUUURRRRRRK-GLORK-BWAAAAARP that shook the very foundations of Borin’s reality. The belch was a hurricane. It lasted for a full, horrifying five seconds. The stomach walls convulsed in ecstatic release around him. The acidic air was sucked violently past him, replaced by a blistering backdraft of pure, unadulterated stomach gas—a concentrated plume of fermented garlic, raw onion, cheap ale, and the distinct, eye-watering scent of dissolving dwarf-wool.
The smell was a physical force. Even submerged, Borin recoiled from it. It was the essence of rottenness and regret.
Outside, there was a moment of dead silence. Then, a sharp, gagging cough.
"By the gods, man!" the guard spluttered, his voice muffled as if he was holding his sleeve over his face. "What in the seven hells did you eat?!"
"Told you," Grok wheezed, his voice trembling with what sounded like genuine distress. "Bad pork.Maybe. It's... it's coming up again."
Another, wet gurgle echoed from Grok's depths. Borin, disoriented and burning, felt the preparatory squeeze begin anew.
"No! No, that's quite alright!" the guard’s voice was receding quickly, footsteps scraping on gravel."Move along! Get through the gate before you... before you evacuate your entire gastrointestinal system on my boots!Go!"
The world lurched. Grok was moving, fast. The rhythmic sloshing returned, but now it was the jarring slap of a hurried walk. Borin tumbled in the broth, a bruised and burning cork in a shaken bottle. The crushing contractions had stopped. The violent upward surge had ceased. He was still trapped, still burning, but he was... moving forward.
He fumbled with the reed, got it back between his teeth, and drew a ragged, sobbing breath. The air was still foul, but it was air. He was across.
The sounds changed. The harsh shouts of the checkpoint faded, replaced by the whisper of tall grass brushing against Grok's legs, the distant call of a hawk, the softer crunch of a dirt path. Eldoria. He was in Eldoria. He should feel triumph. Elation.
All he felt was a pervasive, intimate burn and the cold certainty that his beard was probably half-dissolved. The acidic slurry had found its way into every crevice. The sting was no longer just on his skin; it was in places he didn't want to think about, a fierce, uncomfortable intimacy. His clothes were largely gone, just disintegrating rags floating in the murk around him. He was naked, save for his boots and the oilskin bundle tied to his chest, which felt like it was melting against his skin.
Grok’s pace slowed to a steady walk. The internal chaos settled back into its regular, hungry rhythm.
"Stonebeard?" Grok's voice was a cautious rumble. "You still... whole in there?"
Borin couldn't answer. He just let out a weak, bubbling cough that sent a fresh spike of pain through his throat.
"I'll take that as a yes," Grok said, his tone brightening. "Told you it would work. The fake stomach ache was a good touch, eh? Had to sell it."
Borin found a last reservoir of fury. He spat out the reed. "You... you crushed me, you blithering tit! I couldn't breathe! I was drinking your stomach!"
The words echoed wetly in the chamber, a pathetic squawk against the orchestra of digestion.
Grok’s laughter boomed, a deep, cheerful thunder that vibrated through Borin’s battered bones. "Just a bit of broth! Helps the process. Look on the bright side—you’re officially an undocumented immigrant. The most undocumented."
Borin tried to snarl, but it turned into a wet cough. The burn was everywhere. It was a slick, persistent agony on his skin, a sharp sting in more sensitive folds, and a raw scrape with every breath he drew through the reed. His world was a dark, hot, smelly wound. He could feel things—tiny, soft things that might have been bits of last night's stew—brushing against his face in the liquid.
"How much longer?" he rasped, the sound barely human.
"Nearly there," Grok said, his voice carrying a genuine note of reassurance. "Cousin Snag’s farm. His root cellar. Quiet.Private. I’ll get you out there."
“I’ll get you out there.”
The promise was a feeble glimmer in Borin’s acidic darkness. He clamped his jaw around the slimy reed, focusing on the rhythm of Grok’s strides. Each footfall jostled him in the broth, sending fresh stings across his ravaged skin. The world outside was quieter now, just the crunch of gravel under heavy boots and the sigh of open country wind.
He couldn’t tell if the burning on his back was worsening or if he was just more aware of it. His tunic was definitely gone. The acidic soak had reached his breeches, the thick fabric disintegrating into a sludge that floated around his thighs. A new, urgent fear prickled at him—the state of his beard.His pride. He couldn’t check. His arms were pinned.
His fingers, though, brushed the oilskin pouch still tied to his chest.The tools. The single gold coin. They were there, hot against his skin, the last anchors to his old self. He held onto that sensation.
Grok’s pace was steady, confident. Borin could almost picture him striding down a dusty Eldorian lane, the picture of a simple laborer, his stomach contentedly digesting a large, problematic breakfast. The absurdity was a cold stone in his gut, right next to the actual burning.
Then the footsteps stopped.
A different sound filtered through the fleshy walls: the soft clip-clop of hooves, the gentle creak of wagon springs. Another traveler.
“Grok? Grok Strongback, as I live and breathe!”
The voice was a reedy, familiar chirp. Borin felt a subtle tightening in the stomach walls around him, a flicker of something like tension in Grok’s massive frame.
“Fizzik?” Grok boomed, his voice extra hearty. “Well, slap my tusks. Haven’t seen you since… the Griffin’s Bridle? The incident with the pickled eggs?”
Fizzik’s laugh was a dry rattle. “The very same! Still hauling for the Silversmith’s Guild, I see. What brings you out this way? Thought you worked the northern quarries.”
Inside, Borin went rigid. Every muscle in his battered body clenched. No.No conversation. Keep walking, you lumbering idiot.
“Visiting family,” Grok said, and his voice had that careful, slow quality it got when he was trying to remember a lie. “Cousin Snag. His garlic crop.”
Borin could feel the shift as Grok turned his torso to face the cart. The liquid inside sloshed, washing over his face. He spat silently, choking down the burn.
“Garlic, eh?” Fizzik said. There was a pause, filled by the snort of a horse. “You’re looking… prosperous. Been eating well on the road?”
“Always,” Grok chuckled, and then, as if on cue, his stomach gave a long, gurgling groan. It was a hungry, cavernous sound that vibrated through Borin’s bones. Grok patted his belly with a solid thump. “Still working on breakfast, actually.”
Shut up. Shut up and move.
“Sounds like a whole hog in there,” Fizzik observed, his tone amused.
Another thump. Closer this time. Grok was jovially drumming on his own gut. Borin’s world shook with each impact. A small, semi-solid chunk of something—potato?—bobbed against his cheek. He shuddered.
“Just a big appetite,” Grok said, and then he made a mistake. A catastrophic, Borin-could-feel-it-coming mistake. He decided to be charming. “Could eat a dwarf, I’m so hungry!”
Inside Borin simmered with rage at the gluttonous orc's sick joke.
Fizzik’s laughter cut through the air, sharp as a snapped twig."A dwarf! Good one. Those bearded little buggers are all sinew and spite. Give you indigestion for a week."
“Ain’t that the truth,” Grok agreed amiably, his voice a resonant rumble that vibrated through the surrounding flesh. “Wiry. All gristle. Probably tastes of soot and bad ale.”
Borin’s silent scream was a white-hot pressure behind his eyes. He flexed his fingers, his nails digging into his own palms, the only physical outlet he had. The acidic liquid lapped at the fresh, stinging crescents his nails made.
“Listen,” Fizzik said, his tone shifting to practical. “I’m headed right past Snag’s spread. Spotted his scarecrow an hour back. My cart’s got room. Save your boots the dust. Hop on.”
Inside, Borin’s entire being focused into a single, desperate thought.No.No ride. A wagon meant stillness, and stillness meant Grok’s full attention on the conversation. It meant the journey stretching longer, the digestive juices having their way with him uninterrupted. He tried to muster a mental shout, a psychic command.Stay walking.
He felt the slight, unsettling lurch as Grok tilted his head, considering. “A ride?” The words were slow, thoughtful. “Well. That’s a fine offer, Fizz. Generous.”
“It’s nothing,” Fizzik chirped. “The nag barely feels it. Gives us a chance to catch up. Hear about this ‘incident’ from your perspective. My ears are still ringing.”
Borin felt the shift in Grok’s stance, the subtle movement as he likely gestured toward the wagon. No. Grok, you fool.Don’t get distracted.Forget the ride. Remember the digesting dwarf.
“Wouldn’t say no,” Grok said, his voice brightening with casual, catastrophic ease. “Legs are a bit tired from the queue. All that standing.”
The groan that tore from Borin’s core was silent, but it felt like it ripped something internal. The stomach walls gave a sympathetic, wet gurgle in response. There was the sound of heavy footsteps moving, then a deep grunt as Grok heaved his considerable bulk upwards. The world inside tilted violently. Borin was thrown against one slick wall, then sloshed back into the center as Grok settled with a final, jolting thud.
He was in the wagon. Sitting still.
The difference was immediate and terrifying. The rhythmic sloshing, the jarring jostle of walking—all gone. Replaced by a gentle, lolling roll as the wagon wheels turned. It was worse. The acidic broth, no longer agitated by strides, settled into a hot, tranquil bath that coated every inch of his ravaged skin. The burn intensified, becoming a deep, penetrating soak. He could feel it working, a slow, chemical dissolution. Small, stringy bits of his own clothes drifted in the stagnant liquid.
Above, the voices resumed, clear and unhurried. He was stuck in this vat, and they were just… talking.
“So, the pickled eggs,” Fizzik began, a smirk audible in his tone.
Grok’s laughter boomed directly above Borin, a deep percussion that vibrated the fluid. “Aye! Old Gorm said I couldn’t fit a dozen in my mouth at once. He was wrong.”
“The ceiling was never the same,” Fizzik cackled. “So what’s the wager this time? You look tense. Bet you can’t swallow a live chicken?”
Borin’s breath hitched. The reed was slick in his mouth. Each inhalation was a ragged, wet sound in the confined space. He felt a new, faint but distinct tickling sensation on his calf. A fresh patch of skin, now exposed as his breeches dissolved, was making direct contact with the stomach fluid. The burn sharpened, focusing into a pinpoint of exquisite, biting agony. He tried to shift his leg, but the space was too tight. He was a fixed, marinating statue.
“Nah, nothing like that,” Grok said, his tone dismissive, yet still engaged. Horribly, distractedly engaged. “This is family business. Helping out.”
There was a companionable silence, filled by the creak of the wagon and the plodding of hooves.
“You remember Throk?” Fizzik asked. “From the Smoke River clan?”
Borin’s mind screamed.Focus! Deliver me and then reminisce!
“Throk? Buck-toothed Throk? Got his head stuck in a mead barrel?” Grok’s voice was alight with delight. The stomach walls fluttered slightly with his amusement.
Inside, the acid level seemed to rise. It wasn’t rising, Borin knew that. It was a creeping dissolution, the walls of his temporary prison seeming to close in as Grok forgot its primary contents. The burning tickle on his calf was now a persistent, fiery itch. The sting in his more sensitive regions had become a constant, dull throb of wrongness, an intimate corrosion he couldn’t escape. He felt his braided beard, his pride, a heavy, matted mass floating in the soup around his chin. Was it shorter? Thinner? He couldn’t tell. The texture was gone, replaced by a slimy, unfamiliar weight.
“The very same!” Fizzik howled. “Well, he tried it again last week. With a smaller barrel. Wanted to prove a point.”
“No.”
“Aye! Got it on, too. Couldn’t get it off. Walked into a lamppost. Concussed himself. They had to saw the damn thing off him.”
Their laughter filled the air, a roaring, two-part harmony of orcish mirth. Grok’s belly shook with it. Borin was tossed gently in the fluid, a cork in a sea of merriment and hydrochloric acid. His body was no longer his own. It was a test subject in a warm, dark lab. He was being tenderized. Pre-digested.He needed out. Now. His skin felt paper-thin, his muscles swimming in a corrosive broth. The gold coin sewn into his belt bit into his hip, a hard, hot pressure point against the softening flesh.
Grok’s laughter subsided into wheezing sighs. “Oh, Throk. A cautionary tale written in stupidity.” There was a long, contented pause. The wagon wheels crunched on. Borin waited, every nerve a raw, screaming wire. Surely, now. Surely, Grok would remember.
He didn't.
“You ever try that halfling pipe-weed from the Southfaring markets, Fizz? Makes your ears hum.”
Borin gave up. A profound, soul-deep resignation flooded him, heavier than the stomach fluid. This was his fate. To be dissolved into nutrients because his smuggler was having a lovely chat. The last thing he would hear would be a debate about intoxicants. His consciousness narrowed to the sensations: the throb, the burn, the slosh, the distant, jovial voices.