Nan'Garo had nothing left for them. Rodan and Vienne learned all they could from the ancient dwarven city. The expedition packed their belongings and pressed on into the Under Roads. Although monsters were a common nuisance, Kanae and her companions easily slayed countless creatures, new and known, that attacked from the darkness. They rested and set up camp when needed, but only long enough until the ronoas were ready to move again.

Day to day, Kanae continued to relieve the goblin miners' libidos. Foreman Jayir included. She became public use for them, less like an adventurer hired to protect them and more like a prostitute brought on board to relieve their sexual frustration. Somehow, she had been relegated to servicing the goblins and a minotaur. Claudia and Alicia, who were succubi that also needed to feed every once in a while, sought Renya out for sustenance instead. Goblins were beneath them, as they said.

The diverse underground biomes had been a sight to behold. Caverns made entirely of crystals that glittered like a castle fashioned from gemstones. Subterranean forests with an entire ecosystem of fauna and flora. Long, desolate tunnels formed from ancient lava flows cutting through the earth.

Kanae loved every second of it. She felt like an actual adventurer, exploring the unknown and fending off monsters. Today, they crossed a narrow ridge where each side was a sharp plummet into the depths of darkness. Renya had just gotten done shooting down a swarm of man-sized bat creatures that tried to knock their caravans off. Safe now on the other end, the goblins had emerged in force again to clear out a rubble blocking their way through.

"Hey, toots! Perfect timing. We're on lunch break. Come here and give us a quickie, will you?" one goblin asked.

The trio planted themselves on the ground not more than a stone's throw away from the digging site. Lascivious grins adorned their unattractive green faces.

"I-I only came over to check if the way was cleared yet though!" Kanae pouted.

"Don't lie. You were hoping to get fucked!" Another, who had a larger underbite than the other two, beckoned her over and dropped his pants.

Well, a promise was a promise. Kanae sidled over while they were pulling out rations of jerky and bread to eat. Each of them were already erect. She got down on all fours and wrapped her tongue around one. A second goblin went behind her, laid his food on her lower back, and pushed his dick into her pussy to eat while in the throes of sex. The third threw his hands in the air until she opened the slimy maw of her tail. He used the tail pussy like a sex toy and seemed to enjoy it more than the goblin between her legs.

This went on for a while until they lost track of time. Rather, until Jayir came looking. The minotaur stormed over in a fury.

"I was wondering why you were taking so long with your break. Get back to work!" Jayir roared.

"Y-Yes, Foreman!" The goblins pulled their pants up in a panic and raced back to the dig site.

"Sorry!" Kanae apologized, fearful of having held up the expedition. "I wasn't sure how long their breaks last. Where I came from, it lasted up to an hour."

"Five minutes for them. For me, half an hour." He winked.

Having realized what the Jayir had meant, Kanae spread open her legs to receive a pounding from the minotaur's cock. The two of them fucked behind an outcrop to avoid being seen. Eventually, goblin miners came looking.

"Hey, Foreman! We breached the tunnel!"

"The hell is he?"

"Probably taking the succubus slut for a ride, that lucky bastard. I want a turn already!"

Jayir didn't stop despite the news. In fact, he only thrusted into Kanae slower with his workers nearby. She lifted a hand to her mouth to keep from making a sound. When the goblins walked away, he gave one last push and ejaculated into her.

They cleaned themselves up and hurried back to the others to avoid raising suspicions. Jayir returned to the miners, and Kanae limped over to a carriage that seemed empty. She opened the door to find Vienne and Kris inside, both of them reading from a journal.

"Kanae, hey!" Kris waved. "Come here, look. Vienne was just showing me a geologist's encyclopedia. I didn't know there were so many types of rocks and minerals."

"Come to think of it, you were after the compass to look for a kind of metal, right?" Kanae recalled and entered to sit down next to her.

The carriage lurched. They were on the move again.

Kris scooted herself back onto the seat and said, "Yeah. It's an extremely rare kind of ore called manathine. The compass led me far north of the Badlands. I didn't expect manathine to be sitting behind an underground succubus gate though."

"What's so special about manathine?" Kanae asked.

"For one, there is no other metal like it." Vienne pressed a finger to the page, showing a colored sketch of bright red metal specks stuck to a rock. "They are somehow able to conduct mana to and from each other. Little else is known about it. I have learned that this metal can only be found inside a volcano on a large tropical island called Langua, several hundred miles west off the coast of Savir. What Kris suggests is troubling. It means the ancient elves and dwarves at the time successfully mined manathine. To use for what, that is the question of the century."

"And I intend to find out! After all, that's what an explorer does." The demon woman smiled proudly.

"If it's so rare and valuable, how come people haven't gone to mine it all?"

The two exchanged nervous looks.

"I said it was rare, not valuable. What point is there to transfer mana from one place to another, when more abundant spellcasters and mana crystals can do the same? Reaching Langua is also treacherous, a war against the sea itself. Not to mention, the indigenous beastmen and trolls there are not friendly to outsiders. Once you make it to the volcano, the metal is supposedly deep underground," Vienne explained, her words more of a warning than a lecture.

Kanae stopped pressing for answers about the manathine. It didn't concern her as much as it did Kris, and even then, the explorer seemed more interested in the metal behind that door instead. She eventually fell asleep to the rocking carriage and Vienne and Kris talking about rocks.

However, not a few hours into their journey, the expedition rolled to a stop. Kanae snapped awake falling off her seat. The others helped her up, and they emerged from the cabin to see what was up. None of them expected to find greenery, chirping from the canopy, and the rustling of bushes as animals darted through the vegetation. They stumbled into another subterranean forest.

The expedition stopped on a cliffside overlooking the enormous cavern. Kanae glanced up and gasped at the sight of giant stone borers emitting light from their crystalline bodies.

"Are those stone borers?" Kanae asked.

"Yes, they are." Vienne nodded. "Male stone borers, to be specific. Upon reaching adulthood, a male stone borer seeks a female to mate with. The female lays her eggs on the surface of the male's body, and he will excrete semen over himself to fertilize them. After which, the males cling to cavern ceilings and petrify. The fertilized eggs will hatch and eat him for sustenance."

"Uwah. What a life!" Kris grimaced in disgust.

"Didn't we cull a whole bunch of them in a mine near Ehmvier?" Edina flew over and recalled.

The geologist gasped. "You did what?! In doing so, you have caused irreparable damage to the underground biome! Without stone borers, the ground might face sinkholes in the future."

Well, then. First order of business when Kanae returned to Ehmvier was to fix the stone borer population.

"Jayir! Why are we stopping?" Kanae shouted to the minotaur foreman hopping down from his wagon.

"Running low on rations. Those damn dire bats earlier knocked a few crates of jerky into the abyss. Lucky for us, this underground forest can make up for it. We're no fighters. Can you and a few of your friends go down and bring back some game? We can also make do with edible mushrooms and greens," Jayir explained.

"That's a long way down." Renya leaned over the edge and recoiled. "Good luck, you guys!"

"Nope." Petyr returned to her carriage.

Only Edina, Claudia, and Alicia stepped up to the task. That should be fine. They were all able to fly anyway. The four grabbed an empty sack each and flew down to the surface of the subterranean forest. It was about as dark as any forest in the dead of night. Thankfully, the miners had given them lanterns to light the way.

As they neared the ground, Edina raised a hand to stop everyone from flying any closer. She wrinkled her nose and sniffed the air frantically.

"You smell something?" Kanae asked.

"Poison. Not strong enough to kill us, but we'll get sick and wish we were dead," Edina explained.

"How in the three hells does a half-undead, half-succubus squirreling smell poison?" Claudia peered down and didn't seem convinced.

"I'm telling you there's poison, alright? You wanna go down there and get off to barfing your brains out, be my guest. Hrmm." She thought for a few seconds before summoning an undead mid-air.

The poor skeletal minion was afforded all but a brief moment of existence before plummeting. It hit the ground hard, scattering bones all over the place. Edina cracked her neck and fingers, handed Kanae the Pillar of the Damned, and wove the undead back together with threads of necromantic energies that connected its body to her fingers.

When it became whole again, the necromancer commanded her undead into the forest. The undead vanished deep into the vegetation, and Edina seized control of her minion's vision.

"Couldn't we drink poison resistance potions and go in ourselves?" Alicia asked.

"I'm resistant to poisons and getting poisoned still bites. Undead are immune, and I have plenty of them to go around!" Edina grinned, only for a commotion to startle her and wipe the smile away. "Unless something decides to fling it around like a ragdoll. What the fuck happened? Cantu, get your ass out here and take a look!"

"Huh?" As soon as Cantu materialized, he started falling. "QUIT SUMMONING ME FROM THE—"

The death knight hit the ground with a loud thud. He picked himself up from the crater and marched off in a huff. Unlike the smaller undead, they were able to track a death knight trudging into the forest. He crushed bushes in his wake, and younger trees cracked from just being pushed aside.

Cantu eventually stopped moving, as evidenced by the sound of fighting, heavy grunting, and loud cursing. Something slammed against the tree, causing it to topple. 

Kanae traded worried glances with Claudia and Alicia. Edina, who was seeing through Cantu's eyes, on the other hand, wasn't at all bothered.

"What's going on down there? It sounds fun!" Claudia panted heavily.

"You're not going down there… The poison will kill you." Alicia sighed.

"By the Supreme One's ass! Where are all these tentacles coming from? They're everywhere! I pull one up, and two more sprout from their place— Arrghh! Swear allegiance to the greatest necromancer in the world, she says. It will be fun, she says! I'm paid in sex with half-feeling penises of gorags and glimpses of the Realm of Eternal Sleep. Yes, sooo much fun!" Cantu complained from below.

"Quit your bellyaching! If you don't like this body, I'll screw your head onto the corpse of a goblin. See how you like it then!" Edina yelled back.

"Alright, I've killed the damn thing. The poison was a magic aura. A plant monstrosity was responsible for it," the death knight exclaimed.

The poison gas subsided before their very eyes. Edina took one for the team to go down first because she was at least resistant to poison. She sniffed around for a bit and offered a thumb's up that it was safe. The rest of them descended into the thick vegetable floor of the underground forest. Hanging vines draped down on them like heavy curtains. Insects larger than the ones on the surface clung to trees.

They followed the trampled path Cantu had made. When they reached the undead, he was standing over ribbons of pink and red petals. It must have been a giant flower bulb before he cut the monster up.

With a death knight protecting them at the fore, they spread out to forage for anything that looked remotely edible. Nuts, berries, small critters, mushrooms, and even spinach lookalikes. Unfortunately, the group ran into a problem. A problem that every pioneer faced when coming across potentially new things to eat.

"We don't know if any of these are toxic," Kanae said after they gathered up to go over what everyone found.

"I'm undead, so I can't help you with this." Cantu shrugged.

"How about we feed them to Petyr?" Claudia smirked.

"Do you want to get killed? Because that's how you get killed…" She groaned aloud.

"We do have a necromancer who is resistant to poisons and toxins," Alicia reminded them and shot a look at the squirreling.

"Oh, I see where this is going. Edina's undead! She's resistant! I still feel pain, damn it! Fine. I'll munch on the nuts to see if it's safe to eat." Edina relented.

Since it wasn't fair or safe for Edina to eat everything at once, they each agreed to take a small bite of something. Good thing they visited a potion atelier before leaving. Kanae handed a basic antidote to everyone. Edina gorged on a handful of nuts. Kanae nibbled on the cap of a pink mushroom. Claudia popped a single green berry into her mouth. That left Alicia to chew on a spinach-looking leaf with blue veins.

"Gods save me from this forsaken place if you all suddenly drop dead," Cantu mumbled.

"So, how's everyone feeling?" Kanae asked nervously.

"I can't… feel my… face…" Claudia mumbled past a stiff jaw and fell forward flat on her face.

"Uh, oh…" the rest of them uttered at the same time.

"Fuck me!" Edina clutched her stomach and raced off into the forest. "I need a bush!"

"Kanae? Are you feeling alright?" Alicia's words came out distorted.

Kanae's vision started spinning. Strange lights flashed in the corners of her eyes. Alicia melted into a puddle of ooze, voice echoing the same question like they were in a long empty hallway. She came to with the bitter taste of an antidote on her mouth. Both Cantu and Alicia hovered worriedly above her.

"Edina, Claudia!" Kanae snapped upright.

"Relax. You only just came to consciousness. Edina and my sister are alright, if not a little… traumatized by their ordeal." Alicia directed her attention to two figures lying in the dirt.

Edina laid in the fetal position, hugging her knees and muttering something about 'nuts being out to get' her. Claudia still couldn't move, but squealed in pain every now and then to signal that she was still alive.

"Let me guess: those leaves didn't do anything to you?" Kanae asked with a heavy sigh.

"They would taste better boiled first, but yes. I believe it is best that we discard the rest, unless we wish to surprise the others with a bad time." Alicia giggled into her hand.

Something wandered out of the bushes. A boar that had a tough stone hide snorted as it sniffed the ground. They backed away as the creature's nose led it up to the nuts Edina had gathered, scarfing them all up without facing the same indigestion she faced.

Death Knight Cantu was one second away from cleaving it in two until Kanae motioned for him to stop. She rubbed the Collar of Domination around her neck. A ripple of magic burst outward and seized control of the wild beast. 

Cragswine Lvl. 45
STR	S	Blind subterranean boars that live underground, protected by a thick layer of stone hide.
DEX	D
INT	F

 

"That makes one. It will hardly last the entire expedition even a day. Your living companions up there will still starve without other sources of food," Cantu said.

"Good thing I have experience breeding with boars," Kanae said, spreading her legs open and switching on Versatile Womb.

"I'm sorry. D-Did you say with?" he stammered.

The foray into the subterranean forest lasted all but four hours. They discarded the mushrooms and berries, but kept the nuts to feed the cragswines piglets. Foreman Jayir couldn't believe his eyes when they brought back a whole herd of underground boar creatures. Kanae's thighs were covered in fresh cum. Her legs were shaky, and she could barely stay standing even with Claudia's help.

"Cragswines? These things live in solitude. How in three hells did you find a sounder of them?" Jayir gaped in shock.

"Don't ask… They should mature after a day. Also, don't offer me any, don't butcher them near me, and I certainly don't want to see you eating them!" Kanae made sure to drill it into the foreman's head.

"Er, okay? Yes, ma'am!" He nodded.