As their enemies are dispatched, Chira single-mindedly continues swallowing the soldier down. Up close to the centaur, Xarius gets a good view as the struggling bulge passes down her throat, down the human part of her body, and ends up in a barely-distinct bulge hanging a bit lower towards the deck between the centaur's four legs. She doesn't seem at all encumbered by the human, and both Xarius and Delia know that even a second, maybe even a third human crammed into her stomach would barely slow her down. The soldier keeps his weapon and armor, there not being any time to strip him as the centaur's gullet seems disinclined to wait. Chira rounds on Xarius with her eyes seemingly full of a near-berserker rage and little else... but when she looks at his face instead of his imperial armor, she calms down within seconds and sags on her hooves. "I'm sorry, I... don't deal well with being injured and near Imperial toadies." She seems more embarrassed than anything at the carnage they'd unleashed in the hallway, and nods. "I have... I know I can fit a lot inside my stomach," Chira admits. "And better that I take the swords than you or the others. I can bear it- I've been hurt before, worse."<br/><br/>When Xarius puts her hand on Chira's stomach, he can very faintly feel the soldier's struggles, and hear him screaming for help- even feel a single weak swordblow against the stomach around him. The centaur's hide and stomach walls are so thick, though, that despite his proximity he can just barely feel either. It's as though the soldier's already become a part of the centaur, and indeed as he channels his energy into Chira he can feel a little trickle of a similar energy coming from her barely-stretched stomach and flowing into the rest of the centaur's body on its own. As he backs away, Chira blinks rapidly, and then nods once. "Yes... much better." She sucks in her gut, the outline of the soldier barely visible, and then despite the still slightly bleeding wound in her front declares, "Yes. We should keep moving, as quickly as we can."<br/><br/>Mona looks back guiltily, looking at the stacks of gunpowder bags in the cannon room with a slightly glazed look on her face. "Uh... definitely not going to cause any accidents, don't worry about that," she mumbles. "But uh... you've got armor," she points at Xarius, "You look too awkward in what you have," she points at Garth, "And nothing we've seen fits you," she points at Chira last. "And I don't want any. So no sense getting the armor off that guy, yeah? Better just to press on."<br/><br/>"Agreed," Garth says, who does look notably uncomfortable with the sword and shield he has. "I second the notion of going above than below. If I recall right, through the doors there is a cargo hold, and it's got a ladder down to the crew quarters and..." he trails off, looking back in his memory. "There's a ramp that Miss Chira could clamber up, but I think it has to be lowered from the front deck. Can any of you fly, or climb? There's a large open hole in the deck that the ramp goes down. If not, I remember a few ladders, but someone may have to go up first and let Miss Chira down."<br/><br/>The centaur, who seems a little embarrassed to be called 'Miss Chira', rumbles, "Looks like I'm stuck on this middle deck without help, then. And as soon as anyone climbs onto the top deck to let me up, they'll be a target. Still, I don't have any better ideas. One thing I worry about is if we take the top deck and relax, anyone left below might have the same idea as us about scuttling the ship rather than being taken prisoner."<br/><br/>With that cheery thought, they press forward; gathering at the double doors, they press through, spilling into the cargo room beyond. It's full of barrels and boxes scattered around somewhat haphazardly, and there is the promised large hole in the roof. While it does let sunlight down into the hold, the first direct sunlight for most of them in quite a while, it is also unfortunately occupied. A few creatures of mixed species in unarmored crewman uniforms, mostly seemingly beast-kin. Those aren't the worry. The worry is the three armored soldiers standing around talking with each other in low tones... and the human woman in leathers with a golden chain around her neck already looking right at them. "As I feared," she says in clipped tones. "Too much magic moving this way to be anything but an escape. You," she says, looking at a crewman, "Climb the ladders up and down. Sound general quarters. Inform my commander... and also," she growls, "The Captain. You three soldiers, do be useful."<br/><br/>((<a class="postlink" href="http://i.imgur.com/BIgpPHi.png">Map Here</a><br/><br/>Legend:<br/>Black circles are barriers (stacks of boxes, etc) that are impassible<br/>Gray circles are barrels or a few scattered boxes that count as Difficult Terrain<br/>The purple stars are rope ladders (DC 5 climb check to get up/down with two move actions, or DC 10 to climb/descend in 1 move action); the forward one goes down, the middle one goes up to the top deck. Can be cut with an attack from a sharp weapon.<br/>The yellow box is the area that's open to the sky; you can see a ramp raised up on the top deck that'll need to be lowered for Chira to climb to the top deck when you're done here.<br/>Red S's are soldiers like what you already fought, Cs are crewmen, and the red M seems to be<a class="postlink" href="http://i.imgur.com/kkehRHo.jpg">the lady in charge</a>.<br/>Dark Green letters are friendly NPCs (C-hira, M-ona, G-arth), light green are you (D-elia, X-arius).<br/>Each square is 5 feet.<br/><br/>Init:<br/>Delia 22  <-Here<br/>Mage 16<br/>Garth 13<br/>Xarius 12<br/>Mona 11<br/>Soldiers 7<br/>Crewmen 6<br/>Chira 4 (Lightly Wounded, 1 medium meal (not stuffed yet))<br/><br/>Globals:<br/>Haste: 2 remaining rounds of Haste for the party. (+1 to attack rolls, +1 dodge bonus to AC and reflex rolls, movement speed +30', and can make 1 extra attack when doing a full attack action)))