Getting To Gnoll New Friends

Main Pairing: F human x two M gnolls threesome

Kinks/TWs: Mild fantasy violence, Interspecies, small language barrier, threesome, oral, vaginal, spitroast, creampie, cum swallowing, scent enjoyment, mild biting and scratching, breeding kink towards the end

--

Adelin's crystal lantern lit the cavern in bright green. She held the light straight ahead, her other hand wrapped around the handle of her sheathed sword. Insects and rats scuttled away from the intruder as she delved deeper into the tunnels.

It was part of a long-abandoned mining network. Fledgling adventurer groups often ventured into these tunnels in search of loot or valuable raw materials left behind -- the few monsters that settled in here weren't especially dangerous, making it ideal for new parties to gain some valuable experience.

At least, that was the case before more and more adventurers started disappearing in these tunnels.

There was no shortage of rumors from the nearby town. Some thought it was an especially fearsome monster making the mines its new home. Others blamed the nearby gnoll population, accusing them of mugging and killing inexperienced adventurers for their gear.

Whatever the reason, Adelin's mission was to put a stop to it.

As an experienced spellblade, she doubted that whatever resided in these caves could be much of a threat to her. It was the type of bounty she would usually leave for younger adventurers to gain some renown... But with how many had seemingly gone lost, she took it upon herself to investigate.

Something crunched beneath her feet.

She drew her sword halfway and shined her light on the floor. It didn't move, and could've been easily mistaken for a large, dead bug at first glance before she took a closer look -- it was a shell of clear chitin. Something had molted out of this.

"Cave scorpions..." Adelin muttered, kicking the shell aside.

On their own, cave scorpions weren't especially dangerous, but they weren't known to reside around here, and a sudden appearance almost always meant that a queen scorpion was making its nest.

If that were the case, then it would certainly explain the missing adventurers.

The narrow cavern led into an open shaft with numerous tunnels leading to different areas of the cave network.

Adelin looked at her map. This landmark was the central mining shaft, and there was supposed to be an elevator -- left behind from when the mines were in use -- that adventures used to quickly get from place to place. It was a common courtesy to reset the elevator's position back to this point for the next group. A lever sat next to where the elevator was supposed to be.

Adelin pulled it, and the mechanical grinding of a gear and pulley system echoed across the cavern walls.

Suddenly, something else rang out from deeper within the caves. It was a yelp, and clearly one of pain or distress. Her hand tightened on her sword.

"Too slow..." she said, watching the elevator sluggishly descend towards her position. If someone was in peril, then mere seconds could be the difference between life and death.

Adelin reached into a satchel hanging from her a belt -- a bag of holding, capable of carrying far, far more than its size would suggest in an extra-dimensional pocket space. As a solo adventurer, Adelin needed to be prepared for any situation. After a moment of fishing around, she pulled out a crossbow, modified with a rope and grappling hook.

She fired it at the top ledge. The hooks bit into stone, and after checking to make sure the grip could hold, Adelin rappeled up the shaft, pulling herself up to the topmost cavern. She was sure the cry came from up there.

"I'm coming! Just hold on!" she shouted, breaking into a sprint with her sword drawn.

Her echoing voice was met with high-pitched chittering. At the end of the tunnel, a trio of cave scorpions stood in her path, each one about the size of a watermelon. Their claws clacked, and violet spittle dripped from gnashing mandibles. Their tails tensed, poised and ready to thrust.

"Out of my way." Adelin hissed.

"Skreeeeee!" One of the scorpions leaped right at her.

'Kreta-sleas!'

Adelin incanted the spell in her mind. In one smooth, practiced motion, she both drew her sword and wreathed the blade in a coating of arcane fire, bathing the cave walls in blazing light. She slashed the cave scorpion in twain. Two sizzling, cauterized halves of its body fell motionless to the ground.

Another scorpion was climbing along the wall towards her. She casually severed the stinger right from its tail with a slash, and before the creature could even screech in pain, drove her sword through its head.

As for the final scorpion, she released her spell as a projectile blast, engulfing it in searing hot flame.

There wasn't much time to admire her handiwork. Remembering the urgency at hand, she continued running. A pungent odor of death and rot struck Adelin as she made her way into the cavern. Littered across the floor were scorpion carcasses -- looking as if they'd been hacked apart by someone else.

Finally, the cavern emptied into a wide-open chamber, and her suspicions were confirmed.

The decomposing remnants of fallen adventurers were scattered on the ground. For all their hopes and aspirations of glory, they ended up as little more than food for the queen and her brood. The scorpion queen nested at the opposite end of the chamber -- It was about the size of a horse-drawn carriage, covered in an armor shell of dark brown, reinforced chitin plating. Eight glowing violet eyes trained on her. Its mandibles clacked and gnashed, each fang as long as her forearm.

Writhing atop and around the queen were its many children, like a sea of wriggling legs and stingers. No doubt, they were eager for the fresh meal stumbling right into their nest.

Adelin drew her blade. Perhaps she would have to let her hair down a bit for this one.

Something else appeared in the corner of her vision -- not a scorpion, but a furred figure crouched behind a boulder, watching the scene play out with wide yellow eyes.

A gnoll? Was he the one crying out earlier?

She cast the thought aside. If need be, she could deal with it later. There were far more pressing matters to attend to as the swarm of hatchling scorpions descended upon her.

'Teal-sleas!'

With another magic incantation, her blade ignited and crackled with sparks of electricity. Right now, those hatchlings posed the greatest threat with their sheer numbers, and they had to be dealt with quickly. She focused the thunder magic around her blade and slashed at the swarm. A blindingly bright arc of lightning shot from her blade and weaved through the air -- then another, and another as she kept swinging her sword, sending out wave after wave of arc-shaped projectiles.

Tendrils of electricity grasped the scorpion hatchlings and sent them into uncontrollable convulsions. Smoke rose from their small arachnid bodies as they fried in an instant, filling the cavern with a stinging stench of charred chitin.

The queen stood unaffected, however. Trails of lightning fizzled out against its protective plating, and it shrieked with rage as its brood was undone in a matter of seconds. Tail poised to sting and claws at the ready, it charged for her.

Adelin leaped back just in time to avoid being bisected with a claw swipe. She kept her eyes on its tail -- getting stung by one of its children would've been a painful annoyance, likely costing her a healing and antivenom potion, but the queen's stinger could very well impale her if she wasn't careful. This fight needed to end quickly.

'Gaia-sleas!'

Her sword's aura of lightning evaporated. Instead of glowing with visible magic, it was weighed down with great heaviness, pulling small chunks of rock from the ground that orbited around the blade. Wielding the power of stone, Adelin waited for the queen to make its move.

She would only have one shot at this.

Just as predicted, the stinger shot forth with incredible speed and precision -- like a hawk diving for prey.

Luckily, Adelin was faster.

She dashed aside as that massive stinger bit into the ground. When the queen tried to pull her tail back, it stayed firmly lodged into the rocky earth.

Now was her chance.

With a furious shout, she plunged her sword into the bulbous base of its stinger and grasped the hilt, focusing her magic directly into the blade. Chitin flesh began hardening into stone. It spread out from the stab wound and reached to the stinger, binding it to the ground.

The queen shrieked and chittered. Petrification crept down along its tail, threatening to turn the entire creature to stone. It tugged desperately on its tail, harder and harder in panic... Until it ripped free with a horrific, crunchy sound of tearing flesh. Dark green ichor sprayed from its gaping, thrashing tail stump as the queen shrieked with pure agony and rage.

Adelin pulled her sword out of the petrified stinger and dodged its flailing claws.

"No more."

Standing mere inches from its quivering mandibles, she plunged her sword into the ground and channeled a burst of arcane power. The ground rumbled. Before the queen even had a chance to bite or claw her, stalagmites of earth erupted from the floor like spears beneath it, piercing its soft underbelly and punching through the underside of its armor.

Half a dozen lances of earth impaled the scorpion queen. It twitched and chittered weakly, blood gurgling from its jaws in a final, whimpering death rattle until it finally went still.

Adelin huffed and wiped her forehead. She hadn't expected to break a sweat in here.

"What a mess..." she said, looking across the carnage -- not just at the results of her battle, but the corpses of slain adventurers. These poor folks probably had friends and family back in town, wondering what had became of them.

Adelin was about to sheathe her sword when she remembered something. She wasn't actually alone.

Sure enough, that same gnoll was still present when she turned around, watching her with big, wide yellow eyes and its jaw slack.

She pointed her sword at him. "Can I help you?"

The gnoll flinched and huddled back behind into his hiding spot for a moment, before timidly emerging. He wore primitive-looking armor made from leather and animal hide over his spotted, sandy brown-and-black fur, stained with sprays of scorpion blood. Standing up, the figure was about a head taller than Adelin -- then again, she was rather tall for a woman.

"No fight." He spoke slowly and with a rough growl on every word, clearly struggling to speak the common tongue. "Brother hurt."

Adelin lowered her sword and raised an eyebrow. It made sense that the gnoll hadn't come here alone, and frankly, she was a little impressed that he'd managed to last this long with a scorpion queen and its brood present. However, it also could've been a trap. She'd handled a few groups of gnoll raiders and bandits in the past, but never interacted with one like this.

"Show," Adelin said.

Thankfully, the gnoll understood, nodding and motioning her to follow as he guided her down a narrow pathway.

There was an awkward quiet between the two different beings. Eventually, it was the gnoll who offered something more than echoing footsteps to accompany their journey.

"Human strong," he said, leading her deeper into the tunnel. "Fight like a warrior."

Adelin cocked her head. Was the gnoll... Complimenting her? "Ehm, thanks."

When they reached the end of the pathway, there was another gnoll curled up on the ground. Adelin winced, fearing he might already be dead.

"This is your... Brother?"

He nodded.

Adelin swallowed her apprehension over the whole situation and approached the fallen gnoll. Kneeling at his side, she carefully turned him over and placed her hand on his furred chest -- still breathing, thankfully. She sighed with relief. Shoddily wrapped around his abdomen were a set of bloodied bandages, which she assumed was the work of his brother.

"I'll need to take these off," she said. Using a knife to cut away the bandages, she pulled them apart to look at the wound: it was a long gash across the right side of his lower stomach, and she could see hints of violet poison.

That was a bit odd. She'd expected puncture wounds from the scorpions, but this was more like a single slash. The injury was genuine however, there was no doubt about that. She reached into her bag of holding and fished out two potions, one cyan blue and the other pale green.

Adelin sighed. These were some high-quality, expensive elixirs... But there was really no telling how long the gnoll would last with these injuries, not to mention the risk of an infection. Sitting down, she pulled the gnoll over so his head was raised on her lap and raised the blue potion to his lips.

He sipped it down without issue. She gave him half of the healing potion and dunked the rest of it directly on his wound to aid the regeneration process. She repeated the process with the green anti-poison elixir.

The other gnoll watched with a curious look on his face. "...Brother lives?" he asked.

Adelin nodded, withdrawing a fresh set of bandages from her bag and wrapping them tight around the gnoll's waist. "I think he'll be okay -- just give him a minute to rest. Did you see how he got hurt?"

"Big bug. Tried to sting brother, but missed. Still hurt."

A glancing blow from the queen, it seemed. That explained why there wasn't much poison. Still, anyone would be lucky to survive that.

A few long moments passed before the figure resting atop Adelin's lap stirred. With a cough and a groan, his eyes fluttered open, falling first upon his brother, and then shifting at the strange human woman he was resting on.

"Brother!" The gnoll exclaimed with a wide, toothy grin, letting out a joyous cackle that bounced across the cavern walls. He knelt at his brother's side and nuzzled his forehead. "Brother, strong human save you! Kill all the bugs too!"

The other gnoll blinked wearily, his gaze flicking between the two of them. "...This human killed the scorpion?" he groaned and sat up. There was an inherent growl in his voice and an awkwardness to his inflection, but he seemed a bit more versed in Common than his brother.

"Yes brother! Fight strong! With magic!" He laughed and mimed holding a sword, crudely mimicking Adelin's skills, complete with vocal noises for her magic.

Adelin blushed. "It... wasn't that impressive, but thanks," she said. Standing up, she leaned against the cave wall and stretched her arms, rolling her neck with a satisfying pop. "Do you two have names?"

The gnoll with the fresh bandage around his waist smiled. "Narsh."

His brother pointed at himself. "Relki!"

"Narsh and Relki, hm? I'm Adelin -- charmed to meet you both."

"Adah... Lin..." Relki pronounced, letting the sound linger on his tongue.

Adelin giggled. "Yes, like that. Now, I don't know about you two, but I think I've had enough of these mines. Narsh, how are you feeling?"

The gnoll stood, wincing a bit and rubbing his bandage. "Good enough. I can walk."

Adelin considered asking if the two could handle themselves from here on out. However, Narsh's wounds were still healing... And there could certainly be some scorpions left over, or other monsters roaming these tunnels. That, and perhaps she was starting to enjoy her unexpected company. "Wonderful. Unless you two are interested in staying, I'll lead us out?"

The two gnolls nodded quickly.

Leading them back into the fallen queen's nesting chamber, Narsh gawked at the spellblade's supposed handiwork -- a small army of dead scorpion hatchlings, and their mighty queen impaled on spikes of stone. "...You did all this?" He muttered with hushed wonder that bordered on reverence.

"I told you, brother! Human strong!" Relki laughed.

Adelin couldn't help smirking a little. "...It gave me a little trouble, I'll admit." She approached the petrified stinger and broke it off from the base with a kick, taking the stinger and putting it in her bag. Proof of her kill, for when she returned to town. "So... How'd you two end up here, anyways?"

"We hear stories of fearsome beast," Narsh began, "we come to prove ourselves in battle, but... Not strong enough. Not as strong as you."

Adelin nodded solemnly. That reminded her -- the gnolls surely had their own village to return to.

She looked across the chamber, eyeing the fallen adventurers. Someone was going to have to retrieve these remains. Adelin had no problem volunteering for the job, but given the circumstances, decided to leave it to the town guard once she reported back.

The trio ventured back out of the mines without any further incidents, emerging into the open woods where the entrance was located. Adelin filled her lungs with fresh air and sighed with relief. To her surprise, the sky was already scarlet red with the setting sun. It would be dark soon, and the town was still a ways off... Not to mention that she had no idea where the gnolls lived, or how treacherous the journey back home would be. It'd be a shame if they ended up just dying to some random monster on the way there, especially with all the effort and resources Adelin sacrificed for them.

Goddess, she was really getting attached to these two, wasn't she?

"...How do you boys feel about camping out for the night?"

They both turned to her and blinked, their round ears flicking in the chilly wind.

"Camp good. Dark soon... But no tent," Narsh said, yawning.

Adelin grinned and took out her bag of holding. "Not to worry, my furry friends. I always come prepared!" She reached in and pulled out a large tarp... Then some blankets... Some stakes... And then a lamp. The two gnolls just watched with growing curiosity and disbelief as she pulled impossibly large objects from what appeared to be a small belt satchel.

"...Strange magic," Narsh muttered.

"You bring whole camp in one bag?" Relki cocked his head.

"It's a lot deeper than it looks." Adelin grunted and dug around in her bag, nearly down to her shoulder. Her face scrunched as she looked around for something. "Ah, I knew I forgot to pack something," she groaned. "Would you boys mind helping me gather some firewood?"

...

By now, the sun had long vanished over the horizon as night fell. The campfire crackled, spitting embers into the air that fluttered like glowing fireflies. Roasting above the fire was a small boar they'd hunted for dinner, and the air was tinged with savory scents of cooked pork. A tent was erected not far off -- it was meant for more than one person, in case she ran into others on her adventures, but she imagined it would still be rather snug if they all planned on sharing it.

Narsh and Relki both chewed into their portions of boar with hungry enthusiasm, compared to Adelin who gingerly nibbled on her pieces, looking off into the blowing embers.

The warmth of the fire felt... Nostalgic. It reminded her of when she was just a fledgling adventurer, winding down at the campsite with a band of ragtag companions. Back when every successful outing felt like a victory to be celebrated. It'd been some time since she last felt like this.

Of course, those days were past her, but the memories lingered. Counting and divvying up the loot, drunken singing around the fire, or sneaking off with another party member to blow off some steam. Among adventurers, it was a running joke just how common flings were within groups. It was only natural when spirits were high, blood was pumping, and adrenaline still coursed through their systems.

Adelin blushed with those particular thoughts. Taking a swig from her canteen, her gaze wandered away from the fire, and towards the robust bodies of her new companions.

Such strong, robust bodies.