Tribe Master 5: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Noah Layton

  They had no home – but this land that they reclaimed from their oppressive master would have been the place that they would have lived out their lives had they survived the battle.

  As I took control of the land and kept a watchful eye over the proceedings, I decided to make my first official order of business the construction of a dedicated memorial site within the land. The freed slaves would be buried there, and a cenotaph established, so that the tribe would remember the sacrifice that they had made, and that all new members would know the sacrifice that this land had been built upon.

  Our tribe was growing, and it was already building its own history.

  We owed it to the dead that their sacrifice be remembered.

  Speaking of which:

  ‘What a battle!’ Juliet announced loudly, strumming her lute with a pleasant chord as she approached me at the foot of the tree at the center of the land, just a few minutes after being patched up by a sun-elf cleric. ‘I hope you enjoyed the tune that I played as you raced into battle, Master Jack!’

  ‘Uhh…’ I stuttered, having not heard a single note considering the chaos of the skirmish. ‘Sure. It really gave me a second wind, you know?’

  ‘Oh, I am so glad to hear that. This whole adventure has given me so many ideas for new songs about your achievements.’

  ‘The tribe’s achievements,’ I corrected with a smile. ‘Hey, could you do me a favor?’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘Any songs that you write about what happens to me, to our tribe – be as honest as you can.’

  ‘Well, of course, Master Jack. I mean, I will certainly have to add in a bit of myth and fanfare to spice things up.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I replied. ‘But when it comes to the tale of the events, don’t shirk on the details. I’m not invincible. As you can see, I do get my ass kicked from time to time.’

  After Juliet took off, I sat with my wives on the steps for a little longer, enjoying their company.

  There were re-enactments, already-exaggerated tales of what took place – all of which made me smile even more despite the injury on my shoulder and the cracked rib that I had sustained from the fight with the demon.

  ‘I think this land warrants some exploration,’ Ariadne finally said, standing and stretching her arms over her head.

  ‘Exploration?’ Talia repeated. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well think about it, if Garrison had a demon captured inside of his home, who is to say what else may lurk upon this land and in the surrounding area? He could be hiding considerable spoils from us considering how much trouble he went to in protecting this place.’

  ‘Ariadne has a point,’ Lara said. ‘This land feels too small to truly hold all of his wealth.’

  ‘We’re like treasure hunters,’ Santana, always the mythologist, said with an elated smile. ‘Just think of what might be hidden around here – how much gold he could have been sitting on.’

  ‘Gold?’ Elera’s ears perked up.

  ‘That woke her up,’ Lara smiled. ‘Come on, let’s check out the surrounding area. There’s surely more of value around here.’

  ‘I’d rather you girls find it than anybody else,’ I said. ‘Then we can properly decide what to do with it. Oh, and if you do find anything, don’t tell Mariana or the sun-elves.’

  ‘You don’t trust them?’ Santana asked. ‘I thought they were our allies.’

  ‘They are, but we’re still two separate tribes. They may wish to lay claim to anything that we find, and right now I don’t like the idea of that. I know she’s got her sights set on expanding her power.’

  ‘We will remain alert,’ Lara guaranteed me.

  ‘What are you going to do, Jack?’ Talia asked.

  ‘I’m just going to rest for a little while,’ I replied. ‘Facing off against three deadly challenges, commanding an army of hundreds, waging a skirmish and killing a demon-possessed tyrant can really take it out of you.’

  My wives bade me farewell before equipping their weapons and venturing out beyond the fallen perimeter wall.

  I turned to look up at Garrison’s tree in the land’s center. The remaining leaves that had persisted through the cold spell crackled in their dry state.

  I climbed the steps to the treehouse and stopped at the top, slumping to sit down with a grunt and taking a heaving breath of the cold air.

  Peace.

  A few minutes later I heard a scampering nearby, and my closest advisor scurried up the side of the steps to sit next to me.

  ‘The snow seems to be melting, Master Jack,’ Alorion commented, looking out from the steps of the surrounding land just as we would do back at our own land. ‘Perhaps this winter will not last as long as we thought.’

  ‘I’ll never understand the seasons in this world,’ I laughed.

  ‘Crops grow quickly, so it would make sense that the land would change quickly too.’

  ‘I… Guess that makes sense,’ I smiled. ‘Anyway, I’m guessing the pattern doesn’t change. Hopefully springtime will come around and we can start to grow some of those fruit trees I’ve heard so much about. Creating an orchard would certainly be a pleasure in a land like this.’

  ‘Fruits…’ Alorion moaned, saliva practically dripping from the edge of his mouth as his head lolled back a little. ‘Such luxuries I have not experienced in many a year… They do sell for a rather high price, too, you know?’

  ‘Then it has two advantages – bringing in gold and keeping you off the Corinthian’s.’

  ‘Woah, woah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Master Jack.’

  ‘Right,’ I laughed, crossing my arms and looking out at the land as the clean-up after the battle progressed. ‘Look at this place… We’re really making something for ourselves, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes we are, Master Jack. Now is a more crucial time than ever. We must become regimented and organize our forces if we wish to maintain our power.’

  ‘But now we don’t have to hide,’ I replied. ‘We’re a real force to be reckoned with – alongside the sun-elves we have an army that numbers in the hundreds, and once we train up the newly-freed members? There are few tribes in the area that would even dare to attack us.’

  ‘Opportunities are appearing. This is a perfect time for us to expand our influence.’

  ‘You’re right. I’ve been thinking about it, you know?’ I crossed my arms and took a deep breath of the cold air. ‘Every single one of our conflicts with an enemy tribe has come about because of the differences in the way that we live. Our peace, harmony and abundance versus their viciousness, violence and misery.

  ‘Maybe we have to engage in violence too, but that’s a way of life in Agraria. We look after our own, and we run on the principles that we know to be true. Other tribes don’t see it that way. My first instinct with another tribe would be to bring them into our fold, but plenty of others would look at us and instinctively attempt to destroy us and everything we stand for.

  ‘No more mercy from now on. I’ve given our enemies enough chances. From now on, any tribe we come into contact with us falls into one of three categories – a member, an ally, or an enemy. We make that distinction the moment we meet them. If they fall into the first two categories, good. If they fall into the third… I won’t be pulling any more punches. No more negotiations with brutes. Outsiders are either with us or against us. There is no middle ground.’

  I meant every word of what I said. I had never felt more confident about something in my entire life.

  Alorion took a long pause and looked up at me.

  ‘A man must become certain things if he wishes to survive in this world.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Just something that somebody told me once. Anyway, we have much work to do. What should we begin with? Organizing this new land? Joining your wives to investigate the outer territory?’

  ‘We’ve got a long to-do list, but the first thing I want to do is check our spoils. We’ve been farming our own
resources during times of peace, but if there’s one thing a battle is good for, it’s accelerating our own wealth-building.

  ‘And for a guy known as The Collector, I’m guessing that there are more than a few things on this land that are worth a decent amount of gold, not least of which will be hidden inside there.’

  I turned and pointed at the entrance to the treehouse.

  ‘Well, then,’ Alorion smiled. ‘What are we waiting for?’

  My journey in Agraria months ago had begun with me arriving on my empty tribal lands and being jumped by a screaming green imp.

  We had nothing but a few level 1 totems, some harvesting tools and a handgun.

  Now I was standing on the steps of another tribe’s land, taking control of its ownership and resources, with five beautiful wives and hundreds of tribal members on my side.

  It was strange what you could accomplish in just a few months in Agraria.

  We headed into the treehouse. While Garrison’s body was no longer here, ready to be buried deep in the forest along with the rest of the soldiers, his blood still stained the floorboards and had dried over many gold coins and trinkets.

  Those were just the tip of the iceberg, though. The space alone was filled with tens of thousands of gold pieces worth of jewels, treasure and glistening trinkets.

  I crossed to a large desk on my left that was scattered with hundreds of incoherently stacked gold pieces, running my hands over their cold, bumpy patterns.

  Among it all a perfectly crafted red ruby resided. I picked it up and examined its glistening innards, every jut of its surface reflecting the light spilling in.

  It was just one of many riches that resided in this place, just one mixed in among all the others.

  Still, I needed a souvenir from this adventure, and that was what I liked about it; it was precious but still non-descript when sat with the others.

  I flicked it into the air and pocketed it in my coat, then turned my attention to the rest of the room.

  The abundance of gold, silver and other precious items was obvious, and in the back of my mind I was already planning to use it to snowball our wealth - more resources, more trading, more land, more control.

  Alorion moved about the room, traversing the floorboards and examining the hoard in detail.

  ‘All these treasures under the control of one man,’ he mused.

  ‘And now it’s under my control,’ I smiled with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘Different kind of man,’ Alorion added, before pausing suddenly. ‘Wait…’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Perhaps nothing…’

  He stepped back from the floorboards beneath him and waved his hands over the spaces between the panels.

  ‘You found something?’ I asked.

  ‘There is a draft here. Do you recall Werger’s land?’

  ‘How could I forget? Our old pal Morok in that hidden chamber beneath his treehouse? Wait… Do you think there’s something beneath this one too?’

  ‘Perhaps, but I cannot seem to find an entrance. There is no trapdoor.’

  I waved my hand over the boards, feeling the cool breeze against my skin.

  He was right. There was something down there.

  I scoured the floorboards in search of an irregularity in the patterns of the wood, but there was nothing. Even after flipping the bed I couldn’t find an entrance to any hidden cellar that might lurk down there.

  But there was definitely something beneath us.

  ‘Maybe it’s something so valuable that he didn’t build an entrance,’ Alorion said. ‘Extra-secure, no?’

  ‘Maybe, but I’m not leaning that way right now. One thing all collectors like to do is look at their collections. Garrison would fit firmly into that category considering he died literally cradling his gold and jewels in that corner.’

  After a final sweep of the floorboards we returned outside to investigate further.

  All tribes that we had come across possessed some form of underground storage – the sun-elves had their statues and historical artifacts underground, Werger had the hidden chamber, the wood-elves had their caverns, and even the dwarves had their chamber beneath the blacksmith’s workshop.

  But Garrison’s was proving more difficult to locate.

  We examined the totems surrounding the tree carefully. Many were much further developed than my own – I would have to work on that – but one stood strangely out of place.

  It looked like all of the others, composed of white marble and grafted securely into the earth, but there was something off about it.

  Not only had nothing been built from it, but I didn’t recognize it either.

  I examined the carving at its head. It took the shape of a throne surrounded by riches and chests.

  ‘Interesting choice of artwork,’ Alorion frowned. ‘I have never seen this before…’

  I tapped the model. Nothing happened – no floating screen, no options.

  ‘This isn’t a totem,’ I said. ‘He made this himself… I wonder…’

  I searched the ground around the totem. It was damp with compressed snow, but the ground seemed to dip a little here.

  I knelt to the floor and pushed the snow aside while Alorion explored a few yards ahead.

  ‘The ground is of a peculiar nature here too, Master Jack,’ he said, jumping up and down. ‘I wonder…’

  Whatever we were standing on, it seemed to relate to this false totem.

  The irony that the one false structure surrounding the trees was the one related to Garrison’s greed made me want to smile, but I was too focused on discovering its secret.

  I followed the ground’s odd patchiness to its edge and carved it out. A square door slowly presented itself, measuring at least three yards on all sides.

  ‘Holy shit…’ I commented. ‘Why does it have to be this size?’

  ‘He may be keeping more slaves down there, just like the others, only bigger.’

  ‘What kind of slaves are this size?’

  ‘Orcs, potentially. They can easily reach 3 yards in height.’

  ‘Good point,’ I thought, thinking back to the intimidating size of those that I had seen at the cove, as well as the huge doorman stood outside of the Drunken Steed on many occasions. ‘Let’s just hope they don’t decide to take their anger out on us… Now, how the hell do we open this thing?’

  Once the edges of the trapdoor had been identified, I searched for a handle. It seemed that Garrison had covered the whole door with a layer of grass and dirt so as to blend in with the rest of the land.

  Still, though, even after searching endlessly, there was no handle.

  Unless…

  I crossed to the totem and examined it. The model at its top could be moved.

  I tipped it aside and discovered a handle.

  I swiftly glanced about the land. Nobody else was nearby at the moment, meaning we could act covertly.

  Exchanging a daring look with Alorion, I pulled it firmly.

  Somewhere beneath us, a latch clicked out of place. Suddenly the entire platform dropped a foot, and a mechanical whirring beneath our feet sounded.

  We stepped back promptly. The totem shrank into the ground until it disappeared from sight completely.

  Then, with a mechanized clank, the entire door slid aside, receding into its neighboring earth and revealing the way beneath.

  Clumps of snow fell down onto wide stone steps that led beneath the earth. Three yards was about right – a being of any size, save for perhaps the mother wolf that I had vanquished months ago, could fit through.

  ‘You see any traps, bud?’ I asked.

  ‘None that greet my eyes,’ Alorion responded.

  ‘Makes sense. I don’t doubt that he’s got something valuable down here. Setting explosive traps would just put his stash at risk. Win-lose. That said, it doesn’t remove the risk of other types of traps that don’t involve explosives.’

  ‘Indeed. We should remain on our guard either way,’ Alorion r
eplied.

  I nodded in agreement, retrieving my old sword from my inventory.

  ‘You don’t wish to use your new sword?’ Alorion asked.

  ‘Oh, I would love to use it,’ I answered as we started down the steps. ‘I just have to be careful about what I use it on. If somebody jumps out and I start swinging, I could kill ten people. Great power, great responsibility, y’know?’

  ‘That’s an excellent quote. You should write that down.’

  ‘I’m sure somebody’s probably said it before me,’ I smiled, before setting my gaze on the path ahead.

  The steps took us four or five yards beneath the surface of the land before levelling out. My torch didn’t illuminate the way very far, but as I moved around, I saw that we were standing in a wide corridor composed completely of stone.

  It moved ahead beneath the treehouse, and grafted into the stone walls were a series of heavy wooden doors leading to separate rooms.

  ‘Looks like you were right,’ I said to Alorion. ‘Slaves… I just hope we’re not too late.’

  Balancing my cautiousness with my desire to free the possible myriad of captives, I quickly searched the floor for traps.

  In doing so I discovered unused torches sat in metal holsters bolted into the stone sections between the barred doors.

  I lit them using my torch, moving as quickly as I could until I had cycled the entire chamber.

  Eight torches. Eight locked doors.

  All beneath the land of a dead tribe master known for hoarding things of value.

  And here I was, having just killed him, ending his tyrannical little regime, and now in possession of all of his resources.

  None of the doors possessed any distinguishing factors. Anyone or anything could have been lurking inside.

  Alorion and I exchanged our trademark look.

  I retrieved my torch and my sword and moved to the first door on the left, intending to proceed in a clockwise fashion.

  I hadn’t found any keys on Garrison’s person after he had been defeated; they could have been lurking anywhere upon the land.

  If he was this safe about keeping his greater riches hidden – which I could only assume resided behind these doors – then no doubt the key would be somewhere even more bizarre.