I moved deeper into the cave and pulled my M17 from its holster. The dogs were still howling back at the entrance, and the men offered up curses and threats, but they were all too scared to follow after me.

I was safe for the moment.

My flashlight revealed rough rock walls and a smooth floor that descended into darkness. I had only two options, either stay near the entrance and wait out the angry villagers, or else delve into the mysterious underdark. I figured that the villagers would post lookouts near the entrance, or else board the cave up again, and that ruled out ever going back that way.

As the adrenaline from the chase began to wear off, I started to get groggy. It had been one hell of a day, and I would have liked nothing more than to lay down and sleep for a week, but I pushed back those feelings and let my military instincts take over. I had all the gear in my pack memorized, every soldier did, but I wanted to calm my nerves a bit, so I decided this was a good time to take an inventory of my supplies. Then I moved a bit deeper in the cave until I couldn’t hear the sound of the dogs and villagers before taking my pack off.

I pulled my kevlar advanced combat helmet out of the molle pack and set it aside, along with my collapsible spade, gasmask, and six MRE’s. The waterproof bag inside my pack contained the extra pair of camo pants, t-shirt, patrol cap, and wool socks that I had worn during dinner, along with black gloves, a poncho liner, an extra pair of combat boots, a polypro top for cold weather, waterproof matches, winter gloves, and a fleece cap.

In my map pocket was another pair of socks, camouflage paint sticks, insect repellent, a razor, soap, and a towel. There was also a protractor, map markers, and a calculator.

I checked my right-side sustainment pouch, and confirmed the presence of another pair of socks, chemlights, a wet weather top, and a poncho. The left side sustainment pouch held rappel gloves, fifteen feet of sling rope, a five-hundred foot long 550 cord, numerous carabineers, electrical tape, and a roll of 100mph tape.

Aside from my gun, my pistol belt held an ammo pouch with two fresh magazines for my M17, two camelbacks currently full, a lensatic compass, a first aid kit, and a survival kit.

I opened the two-sided survival kit. On one side it held a finger ring saw that would come in handy if I needed to cut firewood, and a snare wire that I could snag small animals with if need be. There was also a candle, plastic bag, survival blanket, and a fishing kit that could also be used to procure food. The other side contained a pocket knife, a signaling mirror, a whistle, a smokechaser compass, and a magnesium fire starter. All of it was useful, and I was suddenly thankful that the Army made me carry the heavy backpack.

My first aid pouch, perhaps the most valuable of my gear, held a medic card and Sharpee used to log treatments performed in the field, along with a bolin chest seal that would usually be used to treat gunshot wounds, but would come in handy if I was hit by an arrow or sword. The kit also contained my CAT tourniquet, gloves, gauze, an eye shield, hemorrhage control bandages, a strap cutter, and a nasopharyngeal airway tube. There were empty pouches inside for soldiers to add other supplies, and I had always elected to include Quik-clot, a bottle of Aleve, another of ibuprofen, and extra gauze.

Satisfied with my inventory, I shouldered my molle pack once more. I had already known everything in my pack by heart, but the act of taking inventory had helped to calm my nerves, and my mind was now focused on planning my next steps.

If I had been on Earth behind enemy lines, my first step would be to determine a route back to safety, but I had no idea how or if I could get back. My next step would be to secure a defensible location so that I could rest if need be, so I set out to map the surrounding area.

The cave I was in narrowed into a tunnel that continued downward for maybe a hundred feet. I could see a soft glow in the distance, so I clicked off my flashlight and approached cautiously with my M17 in my hand. The glow emanated from an opening to the right, and I crept to the threshold and peeked around the corner. A cavern nearly as long and wide as a football field opened before me, and I took a quick survey of my surroundings.

Stalagmites more than fifty feet tall grew out of the uneven cavern floor, and reached desperately toward dripping stalactites emerging from the ceiling. A soft blue glow issued from long crystal formations that jutted out from the floor at odd angles. Some rose more than twenty feet high. They pulsed softly, and I wondered what their power source was. The villagers obviously believed in magic, and though I really hadn’t seen proof of it yet, the humming crystals made me second guess my beliefs.

Hell, I was on another planet, and it seemed that I needed to be prepared for anything.

Mushrooms littered the large cavern as well, and grew not only beneath the crystals on the floor but also along the walls and even the ceiling. The scent of frogs and moss mingled with fungus in the stale air, but there was another smell. It was faint, but it was easily recognizable as an animal. The scent was a cross between wet dog and camel, and I listened for a good minute for any sign of the mysterious beasts. The cavern was dead silent, except for the steady trickle of water that came from the other side of the cavern and the occasional drip from the stalactites.

I couldn’t see any tunnels leading off from the main chamber due to the tall crystals that blocked my view, so I entered the cavern and moved to the right. I picked a path close to the wall so I wouldn’t get lost in the forest of crystals and stalagmites.

There was strange writing on the walls that reminded me of ancient runes, and crude artwork that depicted hairy little beasts subduing a giant snake. I didn’t like the idea of running into hairy creatures or giant snakes, so I kept my eyes peeled and continued my way around the chamber. There were small cracks in the craggy walls and places where rodents might have hidden, but no tunnels large enough to accommodate me. The sound of crashing water became louder as I moved to the other end of the cavern, and soon I found the source.

The waterfall was twenty feet high, but it only trickled over the rim, falling through the floor to a pit of darkness. The rim of the pit looked unstable, and I could see where large chunks had crumbled off over time, so I kept a wide berth around it and moved between the crystals.

The hairs on my arms rose up and gravitated toward the towering crystal formations, and I dared touch the smooth surface of one of them. A zap like static electricity hit my finger, and I jerked my hand back. Then I prepared myself for the shock and touched the crystal again. The weird gem definitely had a low voltage electrical current, and I wondered if they could be used to charge my flashlight batteries. I had to continue searching for a way back to the Earth, but I also had to consider the possibility that I would never be able to go back, and if so, such crystals might come in handy.

I moved through the glowing crystals and edged around a wide stalagmite. When I came out on the left side of the waterfall, I continued around that side of the cavern back to where I had started. There seemed to be only two ways in and out of the cavern, the cave I came in through, and the lip that the small waterfall poured over. It had been large enough to accommodate me, but I had no idea where it led, if anywhere at all. Unfortunately, it was my only option, so I made my way across the cavern once again. This time I walked through the middle and searched the crystal formations and stalagmites for holes or hidden tunnel entrances. The cave art and the stink of animal suggested that something lived in here, but my search proved fruitless.

It wasn’t until I inspected the waterfall closer that I discovered another tunnel behind it. I should have felt excited by the find, and I would have been, were it not for the bones that littered the entrance. I approached carefully, M17 held out in front of me in my right hand, and flashlight ready in my left. With a quick peek around the corner I discovered no glowing crystals, only darkness. If something was waiting to ambush me inside the tunnel, my flashlight would give me away, but I figured my scent already had, so I turned on my light.

The tunnel was full of bones, but most shocking of all was the thirty-foot-long snake skin coiled on the right side, nestled among the skeletons. I almost shit myself when I mistook it for a living snake, and I took a moment to let the shock pass and focused on keeping my breathing even.

I shone my light down the tunnel. But it revealed only more bones. The eyeless skeleton of a man stared back at me as I inspected the den. Most of the bones appeared to have belonged to small animals and a few birds. Aside from the lone human skeleton, however, there were other large creatures that I couldn’t place. One looked like a cross between a dog and a bull. Its body was four feet long and protruding from its skull were two six-inch-long horns.

Another skeleton was similar to a human’s, but rather than two arms it had four, and they looked like they must have hung down to the creature’s knees when it was alive. I found other bipedal skeletons as well, and several strange skulls. But the den didn’t smell like death, and I figured that the snake must have moved on some time ago.

It was time for me to do the same.

I tried not to crunch the bones on the floor, and kind of slid my feet through them to cause as little noise as possible. The den soon led to a fork that offered three choices. One went to the right, another continued straight ahead, and the last would bring me to the left. I checked my compass, but the damned thing spun around aimlessly, and I figured the strange electric crystals or the iron in the walls were messing it up. With any luck, I would find an underground river or a passage that led to the ocean, and from there I could plan my next move. I wasn’t a huge fan of enclosed spaces, and though there was an angry mob after me up on the surface, I would rather take my chances against humans than a thirty foot long snake.

Torrance had said that monsters lived in the underdark, and the many skeletons seemed to back up his claims.

I swept my flashlight left and right as I ventured through the tunnel I had chosen. When it began to incline my hope rose with it, but then it dipped downward at a steep angle, and I reconsidered my route. I would have to scoot down on my ass, but I would be able to climb back up easily enough if need be, so I continued down the tunnel. To my relief, the chute was only twenty feet long, and I soon came out onto a level path.

Then I heard a woman’s scream.

Her voice sounded angrier than it did scared, and it came from my left. I shined my light around the small antechamber that I had dropped into and saw two possible routes. The chamber was devoid of glowing crystals, but another soft glow issued from the left tunnel, and it sounded like the woman’s voice came from that direction as well. Animalistic grunts and growls answered the woman’s cry with an enthusiastic chittering that made my skin crawl, and the gentleman in me saw red.

“Let me go you stinking kobolds!” the woman yelled as I approached the tunnel quickly but cautiously. My light revealed a short passageway that led to the source of the glow. I could see more crystals in the new chamber, so I put my flashlight away to save my precious batteries and crept to the chamber opening.

As soon as I made it to the mouth of the cavern, I pressed my back against the right side of the damp tunnel wall and inspected the left side of the chamber. The woman’s voice echoed in a way that left me unable to pinpoint her exact location, so I relied on my eyes and nose. That wet dog smell permeated the air, but I saw nothing among the stalagmites and crystals to my left, so I glanced to the right around the corner and saw shadows on the distant wall. The dark shapes moved quickly, so it was hard to see their form, but I thought I saw the silhouette of a woman fighting off small bipedal creatures. By the sounds they made they might have been rabid racoons. However, racoons didn’t talk, and these creatures did. It was a guttural language, but the closer I got the more noticeable it became.

The woman sounded like she was holding her own, but it was apparent by the sound of her voice that she was becoming tired.

Then I saw the woman who was fighting off the group of monsters.

The little beasts were no bigger than three feet tall, reptilian, and looked to weigh no more than thirty pounds. Their scaly skin ranged from rust-brown to reddish black, but they all had red glowing eyes, snouts like a crocodile, vicious little teeth, long claws, and pointy ivory horns. Rat-like tails wagged as they bounded around the woman, who they had backed into a corner.

“Get away from her!” I bellowed, and my voice echoed through the cavern.

The group fell silent, and they turned their beady red eyes on me with surprise. Now that I was closer, I could see that they wore scant armor made of bones over their iguana-like skin, and some of them held little two-foot long spears fashioned with crude stone heads.

Then they all peeled back rough lips to expose rows of tiny pointed teeth.

I took a step forward and leveled my gun on the group, but they stared at the weapon with confusion. The woman they had been attacking sat in the corner beside a crystal, and its light made her skin look green.

The woman stood about five foot ten inches, and had long somewhat-wavy red hair tossed back to the left. Her eyes shone like brilliant emeralds as they looked up at me filled with hope. She stood from her crouch and eyed the kobolds wearily, and that’s when I realized that it wasn’t the light, her skin was indeed green, and she wore what can only be described as a moss bikini. Her body was tight, her muscles well defined and firm. Her perky right breast tested the strength of her tight bikini top, but the other side of the top had been ripped and hung low. A pointy nipple surrounded by a dark green areola the size of a quarter was revealed by the torn cloth, and the curve of the muscles below her hips suggested a tight, pert ass. She had the physique of a fitness model, and despite her green skin, I was instantly attracted to her.

Our eyes met, and her gaze beckoned for me to help.

I took another step forward, mindful to keep the gun on the little monsters, but distracted a bit by the beautiful green woman. One of the kobolds lunged forward and tossed a net at me, but I sidestepped it and blew the top half of the little freak’s head off.

The gunshot reverberated through the chamber like thunder, and everyone stopped to watch their comrade fall dead. I didn’t want to waste a bunch of ammo, so I kept my gun trained on the group with a small hope that they might all run away.

But the most heavily armored kobold walked over to their fallen brethren and gave the corpse a kick. The beast leaned in and put a finger into the cracked skull, then he held it up for everyone to see and said something in a language I didn’t understand. The beast sounded like a Klingon with peanut butter in its mouth, but whatever he said must have been hilarious, because the group started laughing hysterically.

I fired again and blew off the joker’s head, and the laughter turned to hisses and growls of anger as the group of them turned back to me.

They didn’t look the slightest bit afraid of my handheld boom stick.

The green woman used the distraction to her advantage and grabbed one of the kobold’s clubs. She swung like Babe Ruth going for a homerun, and the screaming beast sailed across the chamber. The kobolds let out a collective gasp, and then several of them growled and stabbed at her with their spears.

The others rushed me as the green-skinned woman defended herself with her club, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to shoot them all. The little beasts leapt on my head and climbed up my body like demented toddlers. They piled onto my molle pack like ants trying to take down a beetle, and I pulled my knife and stabbed one kobold who had latched onto my face until he let go. Another strike took a kobold in the right eye as he leapt at me, and I twirled around to dislodge the little bastards on my back. One of them latched onto my boot, and I went down beneath a sea of thrashing scales.

The green woman let out a primordial cry of fury, and I felt her added weight on top of me. We all rolled into the corner in a heap, and I scrambled to my feet as the woman helped kick them off my back. Then I hacked and slashed at the little monsters with my survival knife until their dying bodies gave us a bit of space.

When I was clear, I reached around and grabbed my spade off my pack and batted aside one of the thirty-pound terrors so hard that his head exploded and painted the far wall with dull green gore. I chopped at another kobold with the business end of the spade and cut clean through his neck. The head flew into the air in front of me, and I charged through the raining gore. I used the pickaxe attached to the side of the short spade to impale my victims as I passed. When I reached the far wall, three of the critters hung limp from the spike.

“Die, die, die!” the green woman screamed, and her breasts bounced as she batted aside her assailants with her club. I tried to focus on the task at hand, but one of the kobolds latched onto her bikini bottom and tore it off to reveal her perfect naked green ass.

“Shit!” I growled as I redoubled my efforts and tore into the horde again.

My spade sliced necks and severed boney limbs. My knife eviscerated one who got too close, and he stared down curiously at his entrails as they spilled out of his bulbous little belly. Heads rolled, and dozens of mutilated kobold corpses soon littered the floor as I stood back to back with the ferocious woman.

She swung her club wide and batted aside four furious kobolds. One of the beasts leapt over her backswing, but I caught it in midair with the edge of my spade and sliced it in half. I spun away from a spear thrust and buried my spade in the side of my attacker’s head, then slashed the neck of a kobold flying at my face. The beautiful green woman batted away another kobold as it leapt through the air toward me, and I returned the favor by driving her closest attacker into the ground with my spade, and squashing it like a june bug.

Soon, there were only ten kobolds left, and they smartly turned tail and ran for the nearest tunnel. I knew that we had won, but I still chased after them for ten or so yards and growled like a bear until they disappeared into the dark tunnel.

I put my hands on my knees and tried to catch my breath, and that’s when I felt a soft hand on my shoulder. The green woman turned me around and planted a big kiss right on my lips, then she hugged me tight and pressed her pert breasts against my chest. I returned the hug and felt a bit surprised at how soft her skin was. It was at this moment that I noticed her ears were pointed like an elf’s.

“My savior,” she said and smiled up at me.

I could have stared into those sparkling jade eyes of hers forever, and the warmth of her soft skin and her breasts pressed between us made my dick rock hard. I held her at arm’s length, so she wouldn’t feel my little soldier’s salute.

“Are you alright?” I asked. We had both suffered minor injuries. Scratches from the kobolds’ claws mostly, but nothing too serious.

“I’m fine, thanks to you,” she said as she batted her eyes at me. The act would have looked cheesy coming from most women, but when she did it, she did it right.

I pointed at her exposed breast, “Um, your top is ripped, and your, uh…”

“Oh!” she said with a musical laugh as she looked down.

I expected her to try to tie off the ripped portion to the part that hung from the back, and I almost offered to help, but then she surprised me by ripping the whole thing off and tossing it away. Then she grinned at me with her hip cocked to the side.

This chick had more curves than a coastal California highway.

“What’s your name, my hero human?” Her voice was a little husky, but in a Scarlett Johansson kind of way.

“Ken, Ken Jewell,” I said as I tried to keep my eyes fixed on hers. I failed, however, and my gaze gravitated to the smooth folds of her thin jade gate.

“KenJewell,” she said my name as one word, and she said it as though she was naming her favorite chocolate. A grin slowly spread across her lovely face. “I love jewels, so I love your name, Ken Jewell! Also, I think I love you.”

A quick laugh escaped me, but when she frowned, I realized that she was actually being serious.

“Uhhh, what’s your name?” I asked.

“Nikagekokarra,” she said, and her smile returned.

“Uh, can I call you Nika?”

She seemed delighted by the name and clasped her hands as she bounced up and down. “I love it, I love it!” she cheered.

I couldn’t help but smile at her. She was cute as hell, and besides, bouncing breasts always had a way of making me grin.

Nika rushed into my arms again and stared up at me with lustful eyes. “Take me, Ken Jewell!” She grabbed my hand and pressed it against her bare breast. “You have saved me from the vicious kobolds. As is goblin custom, we are now married, and we should consummate it immediately.”

“Wait, did you just say goblin custom?”

“Of course, silly. Haven’t you ever seen a goblin before?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, no, I’ve never met one. I’ve only seen pictures of what people think they look like. Aren’t goblins supposed to be ugly?”

She bowed her head, turned from me, and then shamefully crossed her arms over her bare chest. “I am ugly,” she said in a low voice. “That’s why the other goblins hate me. While they have long crooked noses, hunched backs, and fierce faces, my skin is smooth, my nose is tiny, and my back is straight. I ran away because they treat me like I'm some kind of freak.”

“Nika, you’re not ugly, you’re beautiful.”

She sniffled and turned her doe-eyed gaze my way. “You don’t have to lie, Ken Jewell. I know how ugly I am.”

“Nika--”

“Look at me,” she pouted and spread her arms. “I don’t even have warts!”

“Neither do I,” I told her as I showed her my hands. Then I pulled up the cuffs to show her some more of my skin. “My back isn’t hunched, and I have smooth skin. Do you think I’m ugly?”

“Oh no, Ken Jewell. I think you are the most beautiful man I have ever seen. You are so big and strong. Not short and fat like the other goblin men.”

“Well thank you. And I meant what I said as well. You are hands down the most beautiful goblin woman I have ever seen. Hell, you’re hotter than any of the human women I know.”

“Do you mean it, Ken Jewell?”

“You can call me Ken.”

“No,” she said matter-of-factly. “I will call you Ken Jewell. The name is almost as beautiful as the man. After we have sex, I will be called Nikagekokarra Jewell. But you can still call me Nika. Okay?”

“Whoa, babe,” I said, and held up my hands. “Slow down. We just met, and you already want to get married?”

“We already are!” She glanced around at the mutilated kobold corpses, and her eyes lit up with a devilish glee. One hand moved to her breasts, and the other slid down her toned tummy. “Let us make love in the blood of our enemies, Ken Jewell. Take me here and now. Make me pregnant, and I will provide you with strong sons and daughters.”

I didn’t want to insult her, and I might have taken her up on her offer right then and there, but I preferred a bed to the stinking corpses of kobolds, so I tried to let her down softly. “How about we get the hell out of this place before the kobolds come back? We can find somewhere to tend to our wounds and get you some new clothes. I have food too. Does that sound good?”

“You are a tease, Ken Jewell,” she said with a sly grin. “Fine. We will find a better location to consummate our marriage.”

I laughed again. She was too damned cute, and I was truly thankful to have run into her down here in this dark hellhole.

Nika went about looting the corpses, and I grabbed the net that the kobold had thrown at me. It would come in handy as a booby trap of my own, so I attached it to my belt with my weapon cord and tied it off with a quick-release knot.

“Any chance you know a way out of the underdark?” I asked Nika.

“Of course, Ken Jewell. My tribe uses many routes through the underdark to raid the surface world.”

“Can you show me how to get to the closest one?”

She nodded and pointed in the direction I had come from. “Through the old basilisk den and past the waterfall is the quickest way out. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Not that way,” I told her. “I came in from there and there are about two dozen humans waiting to chop my head off as soon as I poke it out.”

“Oh no. What did you do? Did you raid their lands and pillage one of their towns? Humans hate it when you do that.”

“It’s a long story. Let’s get the hell out of here first. Those kobolds could come back any minute now.”

She grinned at me and kissed my cheek. “You worry too much, Ken Jewell. Come on, follow me.”

Nika led me through the maze of underground passages. We traveled through caverns of pulsing crystals and mushrooms, down old dirty chutes, and up steep ravines. When we came upon an underground lake, Nika bent at the shore and drank handfuls of water, but I eyed the lake warily. As far as I knew, anything could be lurking in those still waters, but Nika seemed not to worry about it, and I figured that she would know about the dangers that it might pose much better than I would.

“Drink with me, Ken Jewell. The water is pure and good,” she said as she turned to offer me a delightful smile.

“I brought some from home,” I told her, and then I drank from my camelback.

After she was done drinking, Nika rose to her feet, wiped her mouth, glanced around the cavern, and then cocked a fine red eyebrow at me. “Is this area suitable for sex?”

I choked on my water and chuckled between coughs. “We’ve only been traveling for fifteen minutes. Damn woman, you really want to get laid don’t you?”

“Oh yes, Ken Jewell. I have been saving myself for someone like you for so long, and I want you to be my first and only lover.”

“You’re a virgin?” I said.

“My father tried to find me a mate for a long time,” she sighed. “But few of the men liked me because I am so ugly, and I didn’t really like any of them because they were so dumb. That is why I left. It is dangerous in the underdark, but I wanted to find a new home where others wouldn’t mock or judge me because of the way I look.”

“I see,” I said, as I tried to imagine how anyone, goblin or not, could think she wasn’t absolutely amazing looking.

“But you came to save me!” she proclaimed as she raised her hands high above her head. “And I see the way you look at me. You think I am pretty. I can tell. I can’t wait to be your lover, Ken Jewell. Would you like to travel farther before bedding me? Or are you teasing?”

“Yeah, let’s go farther. A lot farther. Show me to this exit to the surface world and we’ll, uh, rest for a bit.”

She made a pouty face and walked with me around the lake. Another tunnel led off from the cavern, and it looked to have been dug out with pickaxes and shovels.

“Who dug this tunnel?” I said as I ran my hand across the rough hewn stone walls.

“Dwarves,” she said.

“Of course, dwarves,” I said ironically.

“Yup, most of these tunnels were made by dwarves,” Nika continued oblivious to my sarcasm, “but my clan ran them out of here a long time ago. Now the kobolds are trying to encroach on our territory, but they’re more of a nuisance than a real threat.”

“Tell me more about your people. What is the goblin city like?”

“Awe, that’s boring,” she said. “I’d much rather hear about you.”

“Well,” I laughed, “I’d like to know why you think we are married.”

“Oh, Ken Jewell,” she sighed. “You are from such a strange place. Obviously, when you save a goblin, they are indebted to you for life. What better way for me to prove my gratitude than to be your wife, have wonderful sex with you, and make you a bunch of babies?”

“Uhhh, well, I guess--”

“But I still want to know about you!” she laughed. “Tell me all about my new husband.”

“Alright, what do you want to know?”

We traveled for another hour through the underdark, and Nika asked me about a hundred different questions. She was delighted to hear about Earth, and as I explained my home town to her, I felt a pang of homesickness in my heart, even though I’d never felt much of one when I was deployed. I didn’t know if I would ever see my parents or my siblings again, but at least I wasn’t alone on this strange new world.

“What about you?” I said as we hiked up a steep incline that led to a natural shelf full of mushrooms.

“Well, I’m not from a different world like you are, but I am an adventurer,” she said with a smile. “I kinda hated it in the goblin city. Everyone is so stupid and mean. I couldn’t take it anymore. Then I found you, Ken Jewell. Right when I thought that I was doomed, you came to my rescue. That must be why you were pulled through that portal. We are destined to be together.”

“Maybe,” I said with a grin. “I sure am glad I found you.”

“You are?” she asked with delight showing plain on her beautiful face.

“Of course,” I said, and I was rewarded by a giggling hug and a dozen kisses on my lips. Nika was a comfort in these dark tunnels, and I realized that I genuinely liked her. What I had told her was true. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever met. And goblin or not, I found myself anticipating our next rest stop.

I had fallen through a portal to a world with two suns and monsters lurking in the underdark. Life had taken a surreal turn. So why not have hot sex with a gorgeous goblin woman?

Things could have been a whole hell of a lot worse.

An hour later we came to a small chamber with a floor of velvety soft moss. Glowing green and white polka-dotted mushrooms grew on the smooth walls, and a single humming crystal protruded from the wall across from a small pool fed by a clear flowing stream of water. The pool was ten feet in diameter and glowed with shimmering light that suggested there was a crystal beneath the surface of the water. Steam rose from the pool, and I realized that it was a natural hot spring.

“Come and bathe with me,” she said, and dipped a toe in the pool. “It’s nice and hot.”

Before I could tell her that I should check it for dangerous creatures, Nika slipped into the water and dunked her head under. When she came up, she seemed to do so in slow motion. She shook out her long red hair as her green breasts danced and bobbed merrily, and I watched slack-jawed as water dripped down her chiseled frame. It flowed between her cleavage, down her washboard abs, and disappeared at the bottom of her V shaped torso as it met the surface.

I’d seen plenty of beautiful women before, but Nika’s exotic features were really doing it for me.

“Don’t be shy, Ken Jewell. Take off those dirty clothes and let me touch your beautiful body.” She bit her lip and touched herself in all the places that I wanted to explore.

It took me about ten seconds to tear my clothes off, and the green-skinned woman giggled when I almost tripped over my pant leg. When I peeled off my underwear and tossed them aside, Nika’s eyes widened with delight, and she tantalizingly bit the tip of her finger. “Oh, Ken Jewell. You are so big and strong… and hard.”

I joined her in the pool and took her up in my arms. She laughed musically and kissed me with a burning passion. The warm water around us bubbled, and the steam lent to the dreamy encounter. Nika wrapped her arms and legs around me and slowly lowered herself onto my shaft. We both let out a moan of passion, and our tongues danced together as we slowly began to gyrate. Even though Nika said she was a virgin, she seemed to really, really, really know what she was doing, and it was one of the best sessions of sex that I’d ever experienced.

A half hour later, I was laying on the soft moss floor trying to catch my breath. Nika was nestled up under my left arm with one leg draped over mine. We lay there in the afterglow of our lovemaking for an unknown amount of time, but nature’s call finally roused me from her side, so I moved down the side of the tunnel and used the restroom.

If I ever returned to Earth, no one was going to believe what had happened. Hell, I didn’t even know if I believed it, but I didn’t much care at all anymore. Having sex with a beautiful goblin in an underground hot spring sure beat the hell out of clearing ancient Syrian temples any day.

A familiar sound found my ears as I was buckling up my pants. I listened closely and cursed when I heard the telltale sound of grumbling kobolds. Their little footfalls echoed down the tunnel that would lead them to us, but the tunnel was long, and they sounded far enough away for us to get a head start on them, so I hurried back into the chamber and shook Nika awake.

“Come on, we have to go. The kobolds have found us!” I hissed.

Nika came to sleepily. She stretched and yawned. “Those little pests again? Dammit I wanted to make love once more. I didn’t even get a chance to kiss your--”

“I love the enthusiasm, babe, but we’ve got to go. Now!”

I put my clothes back on and tossed Nika the camouflage t-shirt out of my waterproof bag. She was my woman now, and I didn’t like the idea of someone else seeing her naked, especially not those devilish little kobold bastards.

Nika led me back to the tunnel, and we hung a right at the fork. “This leads up to the surface world,” she told me, but then stopped and faced me. “Is it night right now on the surface world? If not, I cannot go that way.”

“I don’t know how the days work here yet, but it doesn’t matter. A witch read my stars and told me that I had the ability to bond with monsters-- er, I mean, you’re not a monster in my eyes, but it’s what they call everyone who comes from the underdark. Anyway, the witch told me that I could bond with monsters and bring them out into the sunlight, but I’m not sure how that works.”

“You mean, I could go out into the sun and not get burned?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know how it works,” I said with a shrug. “She said I can ‘bond’ with--”

“It’s the love,” she interrupted me. “I love you. You love me. We are married, and therefore bonded, so I can go into the sun.” Her eyes watered as she spoke, and I realized she was waiting for me to give her the confirmation that it was how the magic worked.

“Uhh, I guess we can try it,” I said.

“Oh, I love you, Ken Jewell!” Nika said as she threw her arms around me. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

“You’re great too, Nika. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.”

We hurried down the long tunnel as it slowly inched upward. Not far behind us, the angry kobolds growled and hissed as they began to close the distance.