Description:The Inarta found the cavern long ago upon a mining venture. A vein of iron had come down on off if walls and as they broke through they were greeted with the most unusually sight. The Underground Forest wasn’t just some simple mushroom forest in a cavern. Nay, during the Valterrian the forest had been on the surface of the world, mightily elms and pines had grown hundreds of feet in the air, then one day the world went mad. Hundreds of tons of rock came sweeping over the forest burying it deep within Mt. Skyinarta. The trees died without sunlight and fell to the great cavern floor, the massive upheavals of Djed began petrifying the trees turning trunks, limbs, and leaves into stone. The small mushrooms that had survived at the base of the trees fused their essence with them, and began to grow in the underground cavern. The fungi began to have hard shells and fibrous tissue that could support their massive weight, the spores became luminous light in the dark cavern. Slowly the forest was reborn upon stone remains of forest giants.
Now the Underground Forest is used as the main pathway for deep miners. They go under young mushrooms and shake its trunk to cover themselves with luminous spores. The spores cover their bodies for several days, and provides them light. While the miners help spread the fungi to new caverns, sadly the forest has only be partially explored by the Inarta, as the mushrooms seems to break apart the stone and from new caverns. To compound the confusion of tunnels and thick vegetation, miners have opened numerous mine shafts in the ways to bring back metals.
Slugs, leeches, bats and other strange creatures live in the forest, feeding off the undergrowth. Many of the insects and slugs are dangerous beings, hosting many diseases and toxins for defense. The large cave bats seem immune to the toxins and eat them readily, sadly they have been known to eat the occasional miner as well. The bats are as tall as half a man’s height and their mouths contain multiple diseases that will kill a full grown man in a few days. Large ammonia pools will often tell people where the bats live, along with piles of bat guano. Knowing that mining is dirty work, Chiet miners will often cover themselves with guano and ammonia to survive the forest to get to a shaft. Insects and slugs take it as a warning sign that bats are close, while the bats believe the miners are something they have already digested. Sadly for the miners it means they are often not welcome characters in Wind Reach.
However, even with all its dangers the Underground Forest provides a secondary food source for the Inarta. Bats provide stringy meat without venture into the cold, the fungi and mold that is everywhere can be harvested for horrible tasting meals. While the slugs and their slime can act as a thickening agent when cooked. The giant mushrooms are also used as source of paper Wind Reach. The harvesting of the forest is carefully controlled for fear of destroying the food that has saved the city more than once. Should the few crops that grow in Thunder Bay be wiped out by storms, the forest can provide enough relief to hold out the winter eating blue mold and thick gelatin mushroom bread.
For those adventurous enough to search the caverns and forests, it is rumored that hidden ancient treasures lay within. However, for those treasure seekers, many of them have never come back.
Map:Mod Note: Many caves are still in development. PM an ST for information on one not yet described. 
