Chapter 99: 97. Charlatan Forest, Part 1

97. Charlatan Forest, Part 1

The sound of running water greets us as trees sprout from the horizon. We’ve come to Charlatan Forest at last.

“Flou3 here, confirming all lines of communication 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 accident—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, similar to a Slime without the core or aggressiveness of an Ooze. They stop chatting and playing when they sense us and slip into the water as we approach.

In the darker depths, I see a flash 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 a lake,” Jonny laments. “I’ve always wanted to swim with cute aquatic monster girls.”

“Shit, Jonny, you’re a God Beast damned genius!” I clap my hands and rub them together with excitement. “Gabby, let’s have the bunnies dig a lake! 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 relaxing 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 whole lake overnight!” Megan says. “The Warren hasn’t attempted largescale 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 again 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 you later, love.”

“Wait, how do you 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 population.

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

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

“What’s that?” the Fuzzy Slime asks, and I explain about ancient human plastic 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 splashing your friends?” Gale asks, confused by the concept.

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

“Gale understands now!”

“Heh, heh, heh, I could play 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 glad 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 plan.

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 is large 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 flanks. 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 tree laden 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 plant like it’s the miniboss of a classic Arr Pee Gee.

“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, large apple dead center. Despite appearances, this piece of fruit is rotten to the core, and it splatters on impact. The apple is so decayed, in fact, that it’s thoroughly fermented to the point its juices are flammable.

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 flame 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 ambulatory roots.

We back away as the flames 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 explain to my group as the bonfire behind me burns merrily. “Shit gets wrecked.”

Gabby lays 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 invaluable later 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 the last dying screams of the helpless flailing plant monster. Gale nods her agreement as flames 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 attack completely unprovoked. He could’ve been a gentleman among Treefolk.”

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

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

“Gale is just glad 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.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“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 flaps her wings a few times and lands 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 constitutions compatible with fruit enjoyment.

The burst of sweet flavor 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 plants 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 uncomfortable…” I cup my dangling schlong defensively to protect it from those who would chomp innocent phalluses.

The green shortstack proceeds to fellate 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 unpalatable 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 the layer 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! Must complete 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 becomes 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-flavored fruit.

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

I grab some large 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 explanation 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 plans, 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 plants. 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. *Gulp* “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 this be a trap?”

““…””

Uh, oh.

“Eh?”

“Hey!”

“Eep!”

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