97. Chatan Forest, Part 1


    The sound of running water greets us as trees sprout from the horizon. We’vee to Chatan Forest atst.


    “Flou3 here, confirming all lines ofmunication are clear. Over.”


    “Who taught you to talk like that, anyway?” I ask—it’s not like she’s going to talk over someone else’s chatter by ident—but the way forward distracts me from getting any answers.


    A brook runs from a spring deep in the forest to where it empties into the grotto where I met Kani. We’ll have to cross it or go half an hour further upstream to keep our feet dry.


    “There’s nothing for us to be scared of in the brook, right, Gabby?” I say while eyeing the long and meandering stream path, noting the shallow portions and several deeper pools along its length. Naiads are sometimes visible on the shoreline; childlike with watery, translucent skin, simr to a Slime without the core or aggressiveness of an Ooze. They stop chatting and ying when they sense us and slip into the water as we approach.


    In the darker depths, I see a sh of colored scales disturb the surface before diving to hide on the streambed.


    “Not in this region,” Gabby agrees. “Koi, Froglins, and Eelings are about all you’ll find around here. You’d have to trace the stream to its source to find a credible threat.”


    “It’s a shame our hometown doesn’t have ake,” Jonnyments. “I’ve always wanted to swim with cute aquatic monster girls.”


    “Shit, Jonny, you’re a God Beast damned genius!” I p my hands and rub them together with excitement. “Gabby, let’s have the bunnies dig ake! Then we’ll stock it with the sexiest water monsters we can catch and have bath time every day!”


    My Goblin wife sighs heavily. “I would say you need to realign your priorities, Alex, but rxing in the water with you sounds like something worth fighting for.”


    “I vote for bath time with Megan!” Gale cheers. “Dig faster!”


    “Give them a break, we can’t dig a wholeke overnight!” Megan says. “The Warren hasn’t attemptedrgescale engineering like that in our whole history…”


    “What’s engineering?” Brenda says from her face on the chest of Jonny’s stone battle suit. I almost give her a look, having nearly forgotten <em>again</em> that she grew up in the woods.


    Jonny pats his own shoulder, a good effort to give a reassuring touch in his strange predicament, “I’ll tell youter, love.”


    “Wait, how do <em>you</em> know about engineering?” I ask the diminutive mouse girl.


    She shrugs. “The Warren has a long memory.”


    I guess Peter wasn’t the first rodent kin to make sure information survived the Incursions that periodically wipe out the local poption.


    “I wonder if I’ll float?” Flou3 says from Megan’s bikini.


    “Ooo, Flou pool-intables!” I shout.


    “What’s that?” the Fuzzy Slime asks, and I exin about ancient human stic pool paraphernalia. She seems pleased with the idea. “That does sound fun.”


    “Why float on top of the water instead of getting in there and sshing your friends?” Gale asks, confused by the concept.


    Megan gives her a suggestive smile. “Imagine me naked, syed on a floating ring and you surface between my legs…”


    “Gale understands now!”


    “Heh, heh, heh, I could y sea monster…” Olindia produces a tentacle from my cooch to join the conversation.


    Yeah, I see the appeal for a monster girl I found on the beach. “Can you handle freshwater?”


    “I’m a Slime, not a real Jellyfish. Fresh or salty doesn’t matter.”


    Gabby returns us to the mission. “Regardless, to answer Alex’s question, I see no issue with fording this stream.”


    I’m d the atmosphere is light in our party. There’s a war looming in two days, but today’s adventure doesn’t look so grim. While we’re not expecting this to be a walk in the park, so to speak, it’s not like we’re marching into a climactic confrontation either. Go in, grab everything valuable we can carry, and leave. That’s the n.


    The five of us (with Olindia, Flou3, and Brenda more or less ‘hitchhiking’) find an ankle-deep part of the brook and cross without issue. Maybe a lone human would invite unwanted attention, but our crew isrge enough to intimidate the local water predators into thinking twice about making a snack of Megan.


    As we approach the tree line, we keep our precious mouse girl protected on all sides. I walk in front while Gabby and Gale guard the nks. Jonny in his Stone suit brings up the rear.


    “Already?” I say.


    Somehow, I’m surprised by our first encounter. For some reason, I expected there to be more suspense before finding an enemy. We’re barely one line of trees deep into the forest! Yes, before us is an innocuous apple treeden with bright red appetizing fruit.


    I’m not fooled for a second.


    “So, do we just pick them, or…?” Jonny asks, clearly wondering why we’re standing here on the edge of the woods in front of a fruiting nt like it’s the miniboss of a ssic <em>Arr Pee Gee</em>.


    “Alex, you may not realize this,” Brenda says, “But that apple tree isn’t what it seems!”


    Duh, but thanks for the warning anyway.


    Summoning an ember spear, I yell the ancient battle cry of my people, “Yeet!”


    My thrown spear hits a pendulous,rge apple dead center. Despite appearances, this piece of fruit is rotten to the core, and it stters on impact. The apple is so decayed, in fact, that it’s thoroughly fermented to the point its juices are mmable.


    Burning bits of fruit spray across the tree’s branches from the momentum of the spear’s impact. Other fruits burst with boiling juices as they’re heated, spraying their payload on wood and leaves. The tree doesn’t catch me at first, but the more apples explode, the more fuel the fire has to burn hotter until even green wood would smoke.


    “Oh, fuck! I’m on fire!”


    This tree, however, is gnarled and dry. Its green leaves go brown and brittle, dropping and burning as the illusion shatters. The beautiful apples turn purple as the Twisted Apple Treefolk’s bark face opens its beady red eyes and mouth full of jagged wooden teeth. It stumbles forward like a drunk octopus on its ambtory roots.


    We back away as the mes intensify, but the pain is too much for him to focus on an attack. It’s still a slow way to die.


    “Damn it, how did you know? Fuck you, biiitch!!!” Smoke cracks his voice as his spindly arms slump, and he falls.


    Timber, motherfucker.


    “This is what happens when you know the enemy’s weak point and have an attack that’s super effective,” I exin to my group as the bonfire behind me burns merrily. “Shit gets wrecked.”


    Gabbyys a sympathetic hand on Brenda/Jonny’s thigh and says, “We fought one of his kind previously. I’m sure your insights into the woods’ dangers will be invaluableter on.”


    The Stone Ooze’s face gazes into the fire. “I used to be terrified of Twisted Treefolk.”


    “Alex can be kind of scary, sometimes,” Megan opines as we listen to thest dying screams of the helpless iling nt monster. Gale nods her agreement as mes dance in the reflections on her eyes.


    “Just to sadistic bastards like that guy!” I defend myself.


    Gabby can’t resist twisting the knife, “You know, this one never did anything to you, making your attackpletely unprovoked. He could’ve been a gentleman among Treefolk.”


    “Ugh!” I yell, not wanting to dignify the Goblin girl’s argument with an articte response.


    Brenda frowns. “No, Alex is right, all those Twisted Treefolk are bastards.”


    “Gale is just d you’re on our side, Alex. I know you don’t hit good girls, and Gale and Megan have been good girls. I’m sure Gabby, Flou, Olindia, Brenda, and Jonny have been good too.”


    “I don’t see the big deal,” Olindia murmurs low-key.


    “They’re new to monster hunting,” Flou3 replies from Megan’s fur bikini.


    I sigh. “Let’s keep this moving, or we’ll be here all day.”


    Either the smoke or the screams alert the Treefolk in the area because we see the forest canopy rustling ahead of us in all directions as the noises of tree-sized monsters clumsily retreating fade into the distance. Maybe I overdid it?


    Things are quiet for maybe a hundred feet as we enter deep enough to lose sight of Fuzzy Field.


    “Is that fruit also false?” Jonny asks while pointing a stone-encased arm at a bunch of grapes clustered a dozen feet up a tree.


    “Careful, it could be a trap,” Brenda advises, “But it might be real…”


    Gale ps her wings a few times andnds on a high branch before anyone else gets a word out. She then grabs the grapes, her talons severing the vine, and flutters down to us again. “Are these little purple fruits good to eat?”


    My heart leaped into my chest when the innocent Harpy girl plucked the grapes, but nothing bad seems to have happened.


    Gabby proceeds to pop a grape into her mouth without hesitation. I wish I had the spare marks to pick Goblin Gut, or I’d have done the same. As it stands, I’m waiting for her pronouncement, “Not poison.”


    We all try a grape. Well, Megan, Gale, Jonny, and I all try a grape. Flou3, Olindia, and Brenda don’t really have constitutionspatible with fruit enjoyment.


    The burst of sweet vor in my mouth is fantastic. The variety of crops in my hometown is rather limited, but we have written records of ancient humanity’s global culinary history. I know what a fucking grape looks like; just never tasted one before.


    “Mmm, mmm, mmm!!!” Gale happily bobs her head.


    “Tasty,” Megan agrees.


    “Dang,” Jonny says with a smile.


    I look around at us, realizing we’re a bit unprepared for harvesting crops. A slight oversight. “How much fruit can we carry back with us?”


    Gabby opens a leather satchel, “I can hold this much.”


    Gale spreads her wings and Megan spreads her arms, but Flou3 converts the mouse girl’s bikini top into a furry basket. “Put some in here,” the Fuzzy Slime says.


    As Gale goes to set the grapes in Megan’s basket, Brenda juts a stone tray from Jonny’s abdomen. “Allow me.”


    I continue looking around. “Those are bananas,” I say, pointing out a bunch hanging nearby.


    “But that’s not a banana tree…” Gabby says.


    Brenda seems relieved to know something useful on the subject and shares, “Fruit Nymphs do strange things to the nts in the forest. One must have been by here.”


    “Does that mean all the fruit in the area is safe?” I ask.


    With a wave of her Apprentice rod, prehensile vines pluck the bananas and deposit them in the Goblin girl’s arms. “I’ll insist on poison testing everything.” She peels one of the phallic yellow fruits and takes its whole length into her mouth before withdrawing and biting the tip. “Approved.”


    “Gabby, please don’t make eye contact with me while eating bananas. It makes me ufortable…” I cup my dangling schlong defensively to protect it from those who would chomp innocent phalluses.


    The green shortstack proceeds to fete the banana instead of finishing the job just to spite me!


    “That looks yummy,” Gale says, taking a banana with her wings. She struggles with the peel, but Megan helps her remove the unptable skin. Then my Harpy bride starts licking the shaft like a pervert even though I know she’s not doing it on purpose.


    Megan takes a banana and shoves in so much of its length that I can see the bulge in her throat. Drool spills from her mouth as she orally fucks herself with the fruit while knowing exactly the effect she’s having on the predators watching.


    Jonny clutches at his groin despite theyer of stone hiding his no-doubt growing erection. Brenda seems to take perverse pleasure in keeping it to herself.


    I think about the noble, ancient human sport of baseball to distract myself from carnal temptation. Must focus! Mustplete the mission!


    “What fruit is that?” Flou3 asks.


    I jump at a chance to put the distracting fruit behind me, literally leaping to snatch the oddly shaped brown fruit from where it grows. I would’ve said, ‘mango,’ but the color is all wrong. Dark and mottled instead of green, red, or yellow.


    “Is this safe?” I hand it to Gabby. I half expect not.


    The Goblin girl takes a whiff of the fruit, and her eyes roll up into her head. “Oh, sweet God Beast!” She starts to salivate as she lunges to take a bite without bothering to peel it. The flesh inside is also dark with deep red juices.


    “…What does it taste like?” I ask when it bes apparent she’s momentarily forgotten her responsibilities.


    “Raw liver,” Gabby announces with the intonation of a lover giving dirty talk. “My favorite organ meat.”


    Gale sniffs the air delicately and then the corners of her mouth turn up into a wide, drooly smile. “Nom!” She leans in and takes a bite. The Harpy girl swoons for this strange raw-meat-vored fruit.


    Megan looks half queasy, half self-recriminating for letting the fact slip her mind that her wife is a carnivore.


    I grab somerge cherries that, upon closer inspection, turn out to be fresh ‘rocky mountain oysters.’ “Okay, dumb question, but why do some of these fruits taste like raw meat?”


    Brenda is happy to give me an exnation while Gabby and Gale continue to fawn over the super-exotic fruits. “Fruit Nymphs provide temptations fit for all monsters, including predators that may find themselves prey when lured into this forest.”


    “And then the Fruit Nymphs… what? Hunt the hunters?” I ask.


    The Stone Ooze frowns, “No, they’re mostly harmless. Nymphs bait the traps for other monsters to spring.”


    Ahh hah! I need to catch me a Fruit Nymph.


    “Change of ns, gang. Eat your fill and leave the rest. We travel light while hunting Fruit Nymphs!”


    My assembled monsters and single fellow former human go about gleaning the tastiest fruit from the nearby nts. It’s simple human/monster nature when there’s an abundance of food to choose from. I’m surprised at how much Megan is eating, though.


    “Did I forget to feed you breakfast?” I ask the mouse girl as she gulps down grapes by the handful. She blushes, remembering this morning when Gale fed her mouthfuls of my magically nutritious breastmilk by kiss.


    “Mph, ev’lution-hung’r,” Gabby says, her cheeks chubby with chunks of liver-mango. <em>*Gulp*</em> “She’s stockpiling calories in anticipation of the change.” Judging by how many of those she’s had, my Goblin wife is doing the same.


    “Wait, I have a question,” Jonny says. “If these Fruit Nymphs bait traps for other forest monsters, couldn’t <em>this</em> be a trap?”


    ““…””


    Uh, oh.


    “Eh?”


    “Hey!”


    “Eep!”


    Gabby, Gale, and Megan all exim as vines hoist each of them into the air by the ankle.