If you want to get right to the man eating hypno-boobed monster girls go to chapter 1, and once you're there, you can also scroll down to the slime girl stuff if you don't care too much about setting.

Oh, and before I forget, while my stuff isn't directly inspired by GigglingGoblin, I do very much enjoy their stories, and this story could be seen as being of a piece with their work.

Prologue

“The Deep Forest is no place to travel alone.”

The words of the wise, which were also the words of the tiresome, came to Harold’s mind as he stood at a crossroads with his friends Pitt and Lance, “Well lads here we are, the white stone road a mile back, and now we’re face to face with a daunting choice, left or right?”

Each of them was armed with a  blade, at least one dagger, and Pitt, who was the muscle of the trio, also carried a bow and a quiver or arrows. They had no time for armor, save for Lance, who wore thick leather, and each man carried a pack laden with supplies. None of them were strangers to danger, and while this was the deepest they had gone into the Deep Forest, it was not their first time on adventure under its boughs.

“Rumor tells of a manor house deep in the thorn dome, and I think that’s south of us, so left, but I doubt there’s anything left to find, at least based on the stories.” Harold spoke his thoughts, as the other two patiently dealt with his tendency for being long winded. “I mean, how many adventurers, surely not as lucky or handsome as we three, I know, but how many adventurers have dared Courles Manor? Sure not a lot of them come back, but enough do, and with enough gold to make me think that particular vein of fortune has been tapped. So I think we should go right, and travel north to finally be the ones to reopen the passage to the Lost Valley and retrieve the gems of the Lamia Queen. Everyone else who ended up there, before the entrance closed, fell prey to her cunning and got lured there by bewitched traitors in the first place, but we know the truth, we can take her.”

By that same token, it seemed like bewitched traitors had brought a lot of warm bodies to their wicked, monstrous mistresses of evil, if the stories can be believed. Harold, on the other hand, thought it was an easy and often replicated excuse for weakness, failure, and bloody crimes of greed.

A hundred years ago, a witch had cast a terrible spell that allowed a banished and cursed woman back from the land of the Others, and of the Fairies. Her return destroyed her homeland, and killed all who lived there, turning their bodies to plant spores that re-seeded the lands and created a massive forest where once there had been open fields and valleys. It hemmed in other kingdoms, and swallowed all but the most ancient and well traveled roads, for true roads, with true names, could not be enchanted by the other side, or by any magic. But while the roads endured, the new forest allowed the darker things in the old forests and lost places to grow stronger. Now, the Deep Forest had spread into the new one, and darkness reigned in its shadows.

Rumor said that the Deep Forest was the nexus of this cursed woman and the fiendish witch’s power, and that the plants were alive, and all safe passage was an illusion. But to reach the haunts of old, the legendary places of treasure, and lost power and fortune, any would-be heroes, or in Harold and company’s case, treasure hunters, had to at least skirt the center.

The Temple of the Spider Priestess, long thought to hold all manner of magical arms and armor, the aforementioned Manor house, and even the lost entrance to the underlands where night and day were determined by the magma that flowed through the ceiling were all lost save for passages through the heart of the Deep Forest.

“I’m tired of arguing with you Harold, the last man to know where the opening was got executed for being a servant of dark magic and for wanting to lure more people into some cave in the ground, and some monster that lived there.” Pitt crossed his arms, and Harold shook his head. It was the same old argument from Pitt, who really wanted himself a magical sword and had no interest in the Lamia Queen’s priceless jewelry or much of anything.

“I’m with Harold on this one, it’s like I said back at the inn, girls like jewels, and I like girls, so,” Lance put his hands on his hips, ”the vote stands. Right, and forward to snake ladies, giant jewels, and secret underground worlds.”

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck, fine,” Pitt fell in behind the other two, “I’ll bring up the rear, just don’t get us lost in here Harold, I don’t want a sticker bush to shove a thorn through my skull and drink my blood because you too a wrong step.”

The three young men marched on.