The Northern Cave

Before setting out, I rested up a bit to feel less like I just sprinted a mile. Since I don't know how to fish, and lack the tools to cook or skin them even if I could get them... I ended up eating some mushrooms that smelled 'safe' to my enhanced senses. (A ??? mushroom - my gifted knowledge informs me that they are, in fact, associated with a specific family of Monster-Girl once I examine one so closely.)

She probably wouldn't drop me somewhere next to a bunch of highly toxic things without warning me, right? Right. Sure.

...Anyway, they tasted like fruit and stoked my lust again. But they also filled whatever tank my ad-hoc carpentry emptied. So! Let's leave the horny tide-pool and explore the outer edges of the northern cave.

The tunnel to the jungle area actually seemed to be the shortest of the three I've explored, with a slight declination as one slithers - er, walks, for most I suppose - down its length. The whole thing smells like petrichor, and I can constantly hear tiny trickles of water moving in places unseen as I move away from the tide-pool.

As I break into the 'jungle' proper, I take some time to look around.

The 'trees' here extend from the ceiling and seem more like the giant, thriving root-network of some surface forest. Despite that fact, lichens, moss, vines, and even flowers are draped all over these 'roots' in a manner that gives the impression of leafs. It's also dark - very dark - but between certain mushrooms and the light emitted by these large, cat-sized fireflies I can see drifting about there's just enough to see mostly clearly for my eyes.

Mostly, that is. I'm relying more on my sensor filaments than I have since I stopped swimming in the pool and I'm not familiar enough with my new form to decide whether or not that's unnerving.

...Apparently, most Dracaena rely more on their sensory filaments than their eyes when in the water or anything resembling a closed space. Despite that, their eyes are comparable to a human's and - in the dark - even superior. Which means this place is REALLY dark despite the luminance the mushrooms and fireflies provide.

Shaking the intrusive trivia out of my head, I decide to pace the outer walls of this place to avoid getting lost. Apparently, I've got an innate compass too, but that doesn't exactly mean I can't make wrong turns per say.

A few minutes into this, and I stop.

"C'mon, get'n down. It'll be fine!"

That's because I hear voices ahead, sleazy, high-pitched, and sinister.

"We've lots of food, and walls that keep all the bad things out..."
"Don't you want a nice, big family?"
"You know you're just wasting your time, right? We'll fish ye down eventually."

Instinctively, I drop low to the ground - my naked breasts nearly brushing the stone and roots as I slither carefully to the sound and peak around a particularly large root that penetrates the ground, making a pillar. Up ahead, I can see a trio of squat, gray-skinned dwarves in company with a quintet of scraggly goblins.

The goblins are throwing stones up into the tree-line while two of the dwarves, much better equipped in leathers and some chain, are lifting an honest-to-goddess mancatcher up into the treeline. The last is standing by with loops of chain in hand.

Up in the 'tree,' I see...

► ...a petite goblin woman in fancy, albeit oversized, tavern-wear. She's clutching a pipe and playing a desperate melody in-beat with the jungle as she carefully and precariously balances on a horizontal 'branch,' occasionally kicking at the mancatcher or flinching when a stone strikes nearby. Her hair's black enough I have a hard time spotting it against the shade, but her skin is a softer and paler green than the toxic mustard-like quality of her 'kin' down below. Her eyes, gleaming gold, stand out easily like a cat's in the night. Every so often, her forward hand's central finger extends straight up in a crass gesture at those below when she doesn't need it to depress a note. [ Appraisal informs me this is some variant of a 'High-Goblinette;' very libidous, but more civil and articulate than most goblinoids and capable of integrating into society. ]

► ...a pale and slender young woman with small breasts and wide hips. Solid-white petals emerging from her hips to form a 'skirt' that covers everything but her groin. She seems truly frightened, and every so often one of the thin branches nearby will intercede against the mancatcher on her behalf. Her hair's white as her petals, but her eyes are a gentle blue that reminds me of the tide-pool. She's trembling. [ Appraisal informs me this is a White Lotus-Nymph, rare, and known to be born adjacent to 'corruptive' biomes where unnatural forces seek to overturn the natural order. Something like a living immune response. ]

► ...a bizarre, arthropodic centauroid. Her upper half resembles an athletic elf, trim and lean with dark-red hair and green eyes, both hands holding a spear and counter-stabbing the man-catcher. From her brow, two long antennae flail erratically (injured, trying to draw magic from the air). Conversely, her lower half is that of a reddish-black ant complete with six legs and thick carapace. Her abdomen seems slightly swollen, and her legs grip the trees tightly enough I wonder why these slavers are even wasting time on such a hard target until Appraisal cues me in. [ This is an expeditionary Myrmidon 'Princess' - an incredibly rare but strategically valuable variant who's left her birth-hive to found a new colony somewhere. If she's captured, then she could be used to create a tireless, hyper-loyal force of thralls for the slavers so long as they manage to thoroughly suborn her spirit. Where are her guards? ]

► ...nothing at all. My heart twists, but that's eight enemy combatants against himself and whoever they're targeting - presuming the target is pragmatic enough to cooperate - and three of them are relatively well-equipped. I've been alive for less than a day in this world, I'm not ready to take on this kind of heat, so I slither away trying to convince myself I'm making the smart call. That I'm not just a coward.

If I do get involved, how do I handle it?