If you're ever about to be eaten by a dragon, let me give you a piece of advice: don't let it happen. Fight, run, beg for mercy, surrender, offer your favors, chop off a limb if you have to - do whatever it takes to keep from going past the uvula. Even if you've got a couple of magical gems lodged in your own gullet, even if you've been magically compelled to push yourself down the dragon's throat - try to find some way to avoid your fate.
Dragon stomach acid is enough to break down gems. Once you pass through the esophageal sphincter, you'll be standing in the stuff. If your dragon happens not to move around much, and you manage not to fall down and bathe in the stuff, even if you've got protective hooves on the end of each leg, you'll be able to feel them getting eaten away, millimeter by millimeter. If you're lucky, enough fresh air will have been swallowed with you that your lungs won't immediately be filled with acidic vapors that eat away at you from the inside; or, perhaps, it's if you're unlucky, as that simply prolongs how long you remain conscious.
If you're in a dragon who's amongst a group who seem to be mysteriously unaffected by direct magic, then even if you can cast a spell, don't bother trying to ensorcel them to throw you back up - you'll merely waste your extremely limited time, breath, and magical power you have. If you want to try to keep on living instead of ending things as rapidly as possible, then try buying yourself time by affecting yourself rather than your environment. For example, even if it's a spell that rapidly drains your magical reserves, "Volare" can at least lift you away from direct contact with the acid...
I shook my hooves, trying to get the acid off of what little keratin remained on them.
I had to admit, none of my vast reading of fantasy, science-fiction, rationality, and irrationality had quite covered hovering in the middle of an enormous dragon's stomach, mere inches away from any of the flesh surrounding me, with only minutes to go before my swallowed opals ran out of magic and I got digested. In fact, I wasn't sure it was a situation anyone had ever experienced. If I survived, I'd have to see about getting myself put in the record books.
In the meantime - if I didn't come up with some other solution, I'd never be involved in any other books again. I squinted down in the complete darkness, trying to see what was below me; I was somewhat relieved, to say the least, that when I'd finished following the command to enter the stomach, the annoying purple dragon's commands let me have control over myself again. By some standards, I was part of the dragon now - but I'd been able to cast magic on myself. Maybe some of the other contents of the stomach were also not covered by the anti-magic whatever-it-was. I couldn't remember the Latin for either 'acid', to nullify it, or 'alkaline', to summon some antacids...
"Frigere," I stated, focusing not on the stomach, but on the liquid within it.
There was a great heaving about, the space I was within changing shape and pressing against me - but as the stomach walls pressed against my hide, instead of feeling burning pain, I only felt the chill of a thin, crackly layer of ice.
I let my flight spell dissipate, and even without acid, winced as my weight came down on my nearly-completely-dissolved hooves. Still - a little pain was a step up from near-instant death.
I focused part of my attention on recharging the opals within me - I had no idea how much magic I was going to need to survive for much longer, but guessed at 'all of it, and then some'. I wasn't sure how long the acid would remain below its freezing point, so I was likely going to have to keep casting that spell, until I came up with other arrangements.
And speaking of other arrangements - the air was getting rather close and stuffy. It might have just been my imagination exaggerating things, but it wasn't like the dragon was going to be deliberately swallowing gulps of air, so letting myself keep breathing was probably a top priority. I was pretty sure the story about the water-breathing amulet letting its wearer stay alive for days was just some sort of rumor - even if someone wearing that had been able to keep breathing, that acid would have gotten him in a few minutes. 'Fiat odore' had been able to create complicated scent molecules out of, well, thin air; with a bit of luck, I'd be able to figure out something similar to create air out of thin air...
Unfortunately, before I could start working through my French roots, I was interrupted by a light heave - and, suddenly, my hooves were immersed in liquid.
Rapidly rising liquid.
The stupid dragon I was in had started guzzling down some water.
My frozen acid quickly melted, but, at least, was diluted by all the water so that as the space around me filled, it merely made my hide itch and my fur start falling out in patches. I tried finding the sphincter I'd come in through, with vague notions of pushing myself through it; but it was functioning perfectly well as a one-way valve, and even when I managed to push a hoof into it, it was pushed right back out again.
Until the dragon belched - I was able to get both of my front hooves in... as almost all the air remaining in the stomach whooshed out. I only had moments before I ran out of breath with which to utter any spell at all; so I took my best guess that 'malaria''s derivation from 'bad air' was from the Latin - after all, River Tam had said 'mal' was 'bad - in the Latin', so I shouted out, "Fiat bonum aria!".
Okay, so the effect of the acid was currently reduced to mild surface chemical burns, and I had a source of breathable air. There were a lot of people who didn't have it nearly so good. (Of course, they tended to have it not so good for extremely short periods of time.) If the dragon wasn't going to throw me up, and I couldn't push my way back to the mouth myself... could I kill the dragon from the inside? I tried poking at the stomach with my horns, without much hope - after all, diamonds tended to be sharper and pointier. I couldn't make out any damage.
That only left one way out that I could think of. I allowed myself a sigh.
I choose not to recount the events of the next few hours. Use your imagination. Or, better yet, don't.
I believe I startled the nightsoil attendant into making more work for himself. A quick "Dormire" put the unhappy wolf into what was almost certainly the happier worlds of his dreamlands.
I was, to put it mildly, extremely annoyed. I was piqued, peeved, provoked, put out, and in pain - and had been plotting and planning for some time now, as I'd had little else to distract me and a great desire to be distracted.
Sure, I could just collect any of my crew stuck in the city, get back to the Mikoyan and fly away. It was at least arguable that that was the most rational course, given the existence of that mind-controlling dragon.
Who wants to bet that my plan involved anything of the sort (at least as anything more than a fifth-level backup plan)?
(Author's Note: Barrel of fun's story, Wild Card, has crossed over with Missy's future in its latest chapter.