The Hero Became a Succubus, and the Only Way to Level is to… What?!

On the morning of the next day, Kanae and Arenade made preparations for their foray into Necro Lord Tomb #3. They purchased potions of healing and mana, rations in case the journey took longer than expected, and bedrolls to make camp within. Renya was getting her own matters in order before joining them. After learning that Vizier Duran was being held captive by the Harpy King's forces, she wanted to get her people into place on the off-chance that things went 'tits up' as she put it.

Kanae would have been more comfortable with Edina Hackett and Estaline von Cleisseldor around for the ride, too. They had ventured into Necro Lord Tombs together before and emerged victorious. However, Kanae was able to boast about triumphing over two. Virtually no one in the world could make such a claim. This would be her third and really cement her status as a legendary adventurer.

"You ready?" Kanae asked her high elven wife in the middle of stuffing things into a knapsack.

"You bet I am! Time to go mess up another one of Charron's pet projects!" Arenade giggled mischievously.

"I'm glad your priorities are in the right place… Hey, I want to go to the adventurers hall first. The vizier did say that he's been sending people in to try and conquer it. There might be a quest notice to pick up, and we can double up on the rewards," she suggested.

They hailed a carriage to the Kandis adventurer hall and didn't expect a commotion shaking up the place. Numerous adventurers were outside with their groups, departing a few at a time on wagons or on foot. Many of them looked to be of Seasoned and Veteran. 

"Kanae, Arenade!" A group of familiar young adventurers broke from the masses to race up to them.

Theena, Kara, and Seven waved from afar with the harpy boy flying ahead of the other two. He slammed into a large minotaur man instead and staggered back, rubbing his aching nose.

"Ow… Watch where you're going, you oaf!" Seven growled.

The much better-equipped minotaur and his party glared down at the boy to size him up. But Seven was too foolhardy to know when to back down.

"We're sorry about him! We didn't mean to bump into you!" Theena caught up, grabbed Seven, and pushed his head down to bow apologetically together.

"Let's go! I don't want to waste any more time!" an elven man dressed in chainmail shouted to the minotaur from a distance.

With a grunt, they walked off without incident. Theena and Kara breathed a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, Seven pouted from having been made to apologize.

"What was that about?" Kanae asked as she and Arenade raced up to them.

"You guys didn't know?" Seven began like he had a secret to share. "Word on the street is, Vizier Duran hired a couple of high level adventurers from Radevic to hit a Necro Lord Tomb. That's got a bunch of Seas and Vets riled up. They wanna get the place before those foreigners do. We were just thinking of doing the same!"

"No, Seven… We're not. Plenty of Vets have come back really hurt with nothing to show for. We're only Rookies!" Theena protested.

"Well, Kanae and I were about to go. We're more capable than a bunch of these nobodies!" Arenade exclaimed proudly.

The three Rookie adventurers gasped, and Kanae shot Arenade a fiery glare. 

"Can we come? Can we?" Seven tugged on Arenade's arm.

"You can't. A Necro Lord Tomb is seriously dangerous. It's not meant for anyone low-level," Kanae explained.

"We did one when we were like… what? In our sub-20s." Arenade shrugged nonchalantly.

Kanae cast both a Charm and Turn Horny on her, causing the high elf to drop to her knees on the verge of climax.

"Pleeeeaase, Kanae! We partied together the other day. Let's go to the Necro Lord Tomb together!" Seven begged.

"Kanae's right. This is way out of our league!" Theena pulled him away from them.

"No!" He wrenched free from her. "Rookies are always looked down on here. All the decent quests go to the other two ranks. Meanwhile, we're stuck killing small pests and delivering cargo around the city? You can't tell me you didn't have fun last time when we were with Kanae and Arenade!"

Theena and Kara frowned. Both of them looked a little hurt. Kanae wasn't familiar with the climate was for new adventurers in Kandis and Savir, but it did sound harsher from where she came from.

There were clear lines of rank around here. When Kanae, Edina, and Arenade started adventuring, people of different levels and experience partied up all the time. They certainly had competition, but it wasn't at all malicious in any way.

Kanae sighed. "Fine. You three can come. But you have to follow our orders. Necro Lord Tombs aren't a place to just run into blindly like you did in the jungle yesterday, Seven."

They jumped in cheers. Even the timid Kara was in high spirits. Seven threw his arms around Kanae's neck for a hug. She patted him on the head. He was like an energetic little brother. Or son? Having Seven around made Kanae think about her own children, and how she hadn't had a single son yet. Maybe someday.

"Uu… If you were… going to invite them anyway… why did I have to… suffer for it?" Arenade asked, still twitching from Turn Horny.

"If any of them gets hurt, it's your fault. They're our responsibility now." Kanae pulled her back up.

The five of them boarded a carriage bound for the eastern gate. There, they picked up Renya.

"I see a few extra faces are joining us. Morning, folks!" Renya tipped her tricorn hat as she climbed in.

"Uhm… Who's this?" Theena asked.

Kanae was about to introduce the pirate lord until she remembered the consequence that would follow.

"Glad you asked! Renya Rown, at your service! Entrepreneur, a sailor of the high seas, and adventurer extraordinaire! Disclaimer on my last occupation: only two days out of the week though. Any more days after two, and I charge extra." Renya winked.

"I like her. She's funny!" Seven belted a laugh.

"I like you, too, kiddo! You wanna see something cool?" She sat down next to him and pulled out both flintlocks.

Apparently, Necro Lord Tomb #3 wasn't exactly a secret in these parts. Carriage drivers often brought adventurers and sightseers there. There was no real danger outside, only when they entered. According to Renya, who had gone to do some digging, the tomb had been known for decades. Many brave and overconfident adventurers attempted to plunder its riches within, but succeeded only in never being heard from again, returning brutally injured, or refusing to ever speak about it after coming out alive.

Some time ago, an adventurer who was crowned a Pathfinder breached as deep as possible before being forced back. They discovered that it was a gargantuan cavern system that stretched the Kandis coast and just a little past the mainland. Long abandoned Man-made walls and outposts within suggested it had been built with war in mind.

"That's not what's crazy though. Get this— that party found dwarven architecture!" Renya explained.

Everyone in the carriage gasped.

"Wouldn't that make this tomb the closest to the surface dwarves had ever made a city? Closer than even Tortuga and Ha'Vavish?" Kanae asked.

"So, Charron went and built a Necro Lord Tomb over a dwarven city. There better not be any sex bots in there…" Arenade shuddered and clutched herself.

"Sex bots?" Theena, Kara, and Seven turned to them for answers.

Kanae and Arenade played a quick game of rock, paper, scissors to determine who would tell them. The former lost.

"Golems that dwarves created for sexual pleasure. They can be tough, but just treat them like any other monsters you face. Also, no one better purposefully lose to them!" Kanae warned.

They finally arrived at the destination deep inside the jungle. Dozens of other empty wagons, with drivers snoozing or picking their noses, had pulled to a stop in front of a massive tree. An entrance was carved into the base of the trunk, and nailed above it was a copper plaque that read 'Necro Lord Tomb #3'.

Kanae spotted the group with the minotaur Seven had bumped into earlier just now descending into the tomb's depths.

"I can't wait! There's got to be powerful equipment down there waiting to be looted, right?" Seven asked.

"This isn't a Rift. More often than not the loot is from dead adventurers," Kanae explained, recalling the first time she and her party entered a tomb.

The party of six proceeded through the entrance. A long and deep stairwell extended into the depths of the earth. Their legs were getting sore by the time they reached the bottom, but a corridor that stretched so far it eventually went out of sight laid before them.

Tomb #3 was similar to #2. The stone walls of the corridor were covered in vines, and its ground in moss. Sconces had recently been lit by adventurers that entered before them. Father in, they passed by branching paths with unconscious adventurers stuck in the jaws of chest mimics at the end. Only their asses and legs were sticking out.

"Hah! Look at those losers. I'd never fall for— Hey, a chest!" Seven ran up to a large, iron-bound trunk.

Kanae slapped a hand to her own face.

"You know that's a mimic, too… right?" Theena asked.

"Well, the ones we passed were definitely mimics. What if on the very slight chance this is actually a real chest with loot inside?" Seven flung the lid open to a large flicking tongue and gnashing teeth.

Renya yanked the harpy boy back with one hand, then unloaded bolts of magic into the mimic with the gun in her other. The monster went still, its tongue riddled with magical burns rolling out limply on the ground.

"Let's let the professionals do the touching, yeah?" Renya grinned.

"Sorry…" Seven sulked.

They continued deeper into the tomb. The corridor ended with a large hole in the wall. Not blown to pieces or purposefully dismantled in any way, but looking like the construction had just stopped abruptly. That gargantuan cavern Renya had told them about earlier began here. Large natural rock formations stretched like bridges from one island to the next. Dark and still waters rippled from droplets dripping down from the ceiling. Far into the distance, a forest of mushrooms towered over them.

"Something about this place doesn't look natural. Just me?" Arenade asked.

"I agree." Theena nodded. "It feels like… someone cobbled it all together?"

"It just looks like a normal cave to me." Kanae shrugged, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

Both of them pointed out a dragon's skeleton sticking out of the water. Although definitely odd, it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility.

"How about that?" Kara directed their attention to a couple of couches arranged to face each other on an island a stone's throw away from them.

"Okay, someone could have easily carried furniture down here though. Maybe they wanted a checkpoint for a place to rest?" Kanae suggested.

"What about that giant green slime up there?" Renya asked.

Everyone glanced up. A massive slime moved slowly across the ceiling. Many animal and monster bones were stuck in its gelatinous body. Thankfully, no humanoid.

"Er… I mean, is it that unusual for a slime to be in a cave?" Kanae asked.

As though on cue, the slime vanished into thin air. Their jaws dropped. It was there one moment and gone the next. Something funky was definitely going on here.

"Well, fuck me in the ass. If I knew we would be tripping balls, I'd have pre-gamed ten shots of my strongest whiskey first!" Renya drew both pistols and kept her eyes peeled.

As soon as they crossed the bridge to the first landmass, a large, headless troll appeared out of nowhere with a giant club. It swung at them, and they barely dodged away in time. Renya filled it full of holes right away, but the monster didn't go down.

"That's an undead! Stand back!" Arenade flew into the air and fired a beam of divine energies, searing the monstrosity into a pile of ashes.

"What the hell is going on?" Kanae asked as she and the others gathered to where the undead had been standing.

"He-Heeelp!" Someone came running out of the mushroom forest, chased by hundreds of tiny little balls of lights.

Kanae almost mistook them for fairies like Chilla and her race of fae from Faebog. These creatures were instead insect-like with compound eyes. They wielded tiny pitchforks, repeatedly jabbing the elven man like a swarm of stinging bees. Theena loosed a few arrows from her shortbow to disturb the horde, but they continued stabbing the poor guy.

"I don't got anything that won't put the elf in the line of fire." Renya put her hands up.

"Uhhh… If we're dealing with insects…" Kanae pulled her clothes off, causing Theena to cover Seven and Kara's eyes.

Exhibitionist Spellcasting increased her INT from S to SS. Kanae cast Magic Hand, and a giant translucent palm manifested above the fleeing elf's hand. She swatted downwards, squashing him and the insect fairies into the ground. Everyone winced.

"Arenade, I think he's going to need some healing…" Kanae said and slipped her regalia back on.

Peeling the hand away revealed an unconscious elf. The tiny stabby monsters had been swatted dead.

"Hey, I recognize this guy! Wasn't he in a group with the minotaur I ran into?" Seven asked.

"Ow… Didn't you have any other spell that could have helped me?" the elf groaned.

"We're about to find out because he isn't actually unconscious. What's going on here, pal?" Arenade lifted him into the sitting position.

"Beats me! Monsters just appear and disappear at random. It isn't just monsters though. This whole place keeps changing! I got separated from my parting by a rotating wall. I'm not risking my neck to find them. I'm getting out of here!" He got up and bolted to the entrance.

"That man was a Veteran… I'm sure his party was the same. Are we really going to be okay down here?" Theena asked shakily.

Kanae rested a hand on her shoulder and offered a reassuring nod. The Akesian woman smiled back. If it got too dangerous, Kanae could always charm them to return to Kandis. For now, nothing had been out of their ability to handle. They still needed to find the artifact Vizier Duran had spoken of.

Whatever was happening in here had to be the work of the Necro Lord, who ruled this tomb like Zogoth and Cantu. Getting this done would be so easy if Kanae could just get in contact with them and explain that they were technically allies. Would the Necro Lord even believe her, having been stuck down here all this time?

They pressed on into the mushroom forest. Stalks as thick as trees towered over them. Some emitted a kind of pollen or spore that Kanae hoped wasn't laced with hallucinogens.

"Alright, everyone. We don't know what could jump out at any moment, so stick close and…" Kanae glanced around and realized the others had disappeared. "Why do I even bother if we keep getting split up? UGH!"

Okay. Just calm down and assess the situation—

Kanae took one step and something beneath her feet glowed a bright green. She had walked into a ring of tiny mushrooms.

"Fuck me." Kanae groaned.

The ensuing magic teleported Kanae. She hit the cold hard ground and squealed in pain. After picking herself up, she found herself in an enclosed room surrounded by numerous ropers. They stared intently at her with their one eye and many writhing tentacles.

"Oh… Fuck me…" she repeated earnestly.