by Logan Jacobs
We ran into a few travelers, and the girls always kept their hands near their weapons until the people were out of sight, but they still gave everyone friendly smiles. We took turns holding the reins and steering the wagon, but for the most part the horses just stayed in a straight line, so it was easy work. It was more relaxing than riding on horseback, too, but I wouldn’t say that where Goliath could hear me.
The poor warhorse was already reluctant enough to be strapped together with the mule, but they seemed to become better friends with each passing day.
The temperature rose as we climbed down out of the mountains and returned to the valley surrounding Bastianville, and we all shed off layers of thicker clothing. The leaves on the trees shivered in the breeze, and the same wind tousled the hair of the three women sitting beside me. It felt like we’d left winter and returned to spring time, but I wasn’t complaining.
It was a nice change of pace after the dreary chill of Arginold. Everything about that town had been cold, from the color scheme to the people’s attitudes. The dreary gray stone had compounded the chill in the air, and it wasn’t surprising how many of the citizens looked depressed.
Soon, I knew the girls were ready for a break, so I looked for a good place to make camp. That’s when I spotted the pool of inviting water a little ways off the road. It was an inlet from the river, but it looked deep enough to swim in. Ferns framed the outside, and moss covered the banks, so I knew it would feel amazing on my bare feet.
It was like a perfect little grotto, and the urge to go swimming became too much for me to bear.
I made a new save point so I could reset back to this moment if I wanted to. All it would take was a thought, and then I would hear the chime in my ear that signaled a new respawn.
“Whoa, there, Goliath…” I pulled the wagon to a stop. “Now, who wants to go swimming? There’s a little pool of water over there that looks very inviting.”
“We are getting so close to Bastianville, though,” Mahini pointed out with a furrowed brow. “If we take too many breaks, we will only prolong our arrival.”
“I know what you’re going to say, husband,” Elissa interjected before I could even open my mouth. “We have all the time in the world.”
“She’s right.” Eva grinned. “We’re with the Great One of Legend. We can do what we want.”
“Even… skinny dipping?” I waggled my eyebrows at the three ladies at my side.
“What is… skinny dipping?” Mahini pronounced the words slowly like she was sipping wine, and the effect endeared her to me even more.
“That’s where you go swimming naked,” I explained in a patient tone, and I was ready to hear them reject my idea entirely.
“If that’s what you want,” Elissa giggled, and her cheeks flushed a pink hue. “You know I would do anything for you…”
“She’s not alone,” Evangeline purred, and her gray eyes twinkled with mischief. “I say we do it.”
“I… I will stay and guard the wagon,” Mahini said, and she lifted her chin with a determined air.
“You don’t want to go swimming with me?” I gave her a mock-pouty face.
“Someone needs to guard our loot,” she pointed out, and she pressed her lips into a thin, stoic line.
Now, it was a challenge, and I always loved a good challenge.
“I think it would be super sexy if you did,” I informed her with another waggle of my eyebrows.
“I…” Mahini looked tormented. “I want you to find me attractive.”
“Then go with us,” I urged.
“Yes, please?” Elissa added as she clasped her hands beneath her dainty chin.
“It will be less fun without you,” Eva explained.
“I will think about it while I’m guarding the wagon,” the desert goddess said, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Oh, come on,” I teased, and I nudged her side with my elbow. “It will be safe for five minutes. Come enjoy the water with us, and try to relax, just for a little while?”
“If… that is your wish,” Mahini said in a reluctant voice, but her ice-blue eyes danced with amusement. “I cannot deny you.”
“Now, that’s what I’m talking about.” I cackled like a maniac, and all three girls looked at me in confusion. “My life is fucking awesome.”
“Let us go,” Elissa said as she hopped down from the wagon. “Last one in the water is a spoiled egg.”
“I know that game,” I chuckled, and I leapt from the wagon to land right next to my wife. “Good luck.”
Then I took off running toward the grotto, and I began to peel off layers of armor and clothing as soon as I left the side of the road and entered the woods. I was naked by the time I hit the edge of the pool, but then I spotted Elissa’s fiery tendrils flying behind her like a flag of victory as she sailed past me.
She cackled like a madwoman as she dashed forward, and my cock twitched at the glorious sound of her laughter. I was crazy in love with all three of my women, and it was pretty amazing we accomplished anything besides sex. I suppose no one would blame me if I was the kind of god who spent all his time in the bedroom with the three hottest women in the realm.
“I win!” My wife ran straight into the water, but then she squealed and tried to jump out. “It’s chilly!”
“Don’t tell me that!” I laughed, but I didn’t hesitate as I made my way into the water. Elissa was right, it was pretty cold, but I trudged in anyway.
A moment later, a naked Mahini and Evangeline darted past me and into the water, and their squeals were a delight to my ears.
“So, who’s the spoiled egg?” Mahini asked as she bravely lowered herself into the water.
“You and Eva,” Elissa informed her with a shrug. “I beat Bash.”
“You mean the Great One allowed you to win,” Eva teased.
“Come now, ladies, let’s get along,” I chuckled.
“We are only playing, Great One,” Mahini said in a serious tone.
The three of them were certainly very different from each other, but they were all crazy about me, so they had that in common.
Mahini was a toned and tanned desert goddess whose stoic face was inscrutable to most, but I felt like I’d decoded the secrets of her head and heart, so she was an open book to me. Elissa was tiny, fiery, and freckled, and her zest for life kept me feeling enthusiastic for even the most mundane of tasks. Evangeline looked like a pale, soft-skinned noble who grew up a bit spoiled, but beneath that noble-bred exterior was a determined and energetic woman who was eager to conquer the world with me.
It was pretty incredible I’d won not only one, but all three of them. I wasn’t sure what the norms were in this world, but no one had screamed at me for having a polygamist lifestyle yet. I supposed being a man who always won made it hard to question my relationship choices, but the most surprising aspect was how much the girls loved each other.
Mahini and Elissa had practically insisted Evangeline join our party, and they’d opened their arms to the duke’s daughter almost immediately.
I was definitely a lucky man.
Or Archduke. Or God.
However the cake was sliced, the three women were devoted to me and only me, and I vowed to never take them for granted.
I shook my head to dispel my thoughts, and then I returned my focus to the three naked, wet women swimming around me.
We splashed and played in the water as the sun carved a path through the sky above the trees, and the sound of the girls’ laughter rang out through the forest like bird song.
It was perfect. Almost heavenly, and I wanted to live in that moment forever.
Then the sound of screaming horses and metal hitting the earth echoed across the space between us and the wagon.
“What was that?” Mahini’s head whipped around, and she narrowed her ice-blue eyes suspiciously.
“I suppose it has been a minute since we’ve checked on our wagon,” I allowed in a low voice as I edged toward the bank. “St
ay behind me.”
The three naked women climbed out of the pool of water, and they stood dripping wet and shivering behind me as we made our way back through the trees. The girls picked up their clothing on the way, and by the time we reached the road, we all had an armful of armor and clothes.
Mahini inhaled sharply by my side, and my gaze leapt to the wagon.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
Climbing on top of it were fucking goblins.
They were short creatures, maybe about three-feet tall, but they were quite muscular for something their size. Their skin was mottled green and black, and they each wore a set of leather armor that wouldn’t fit a human body. Their hands were much longer than that of a man, with their branch-like fingers accounting for most of the length, and I would bet their feet were the same.
Their faces were kind of squashed-looking when compared to a human’s, with large black eyes, a huge carrot-like nose, and ears that were almost as long as my dagger’s blade.
There had to be at least twenty of them, and they were pulling back the canvas to reveal my treasure as we rushed toward them.
These little fuckers were about to find out what happens when you mess with the God of Time.
Chapter Two
I wasn’t about to let a single goblin finger touch my treasure, nor was I about to start fighting off a horde of little assholes while I was naked, so I reset back to my save point with a wave of my willpower.
Chime.
I was sitting on the wagon bench between the three girls, and I was back in the moment before I stopped to point out the little grotto. The goblins hadn’t swarmed the treasure yet, and all was still right in the world.
I furrowed my brow in thought as I decided what to do next. We’d been swimming for quite a while before the goblins had shown up, so I had time to plan before they arrived.
How they knew there was gold and other treasure on my wagon was beyond me, but I supposed the slimy creatures had a way of sniffing out valuable loot. They were hoarders, after all, and the last time I’d run into them I’d found chests full of copper coins hidden in the mine they’d made into their lair.
I’d upgraded my loot game a lot since then, and emptying the Duke of Arginold’s treasure room Ocean’s Eleven style definitely made me feel like I’d leveled up.
There was no menu screen or options or settings in this world, so I had no idea if my powers were increasing or not. I just felt stronger, and more capable, with each life.
Whatever explanation there was could wait, though, since I needed to handle the problem in front of me.
“There’s goblins nearby,” I informed the three women by my side in a low voice, and I pulled the wagon to a stop. I kept it in the same location as my previous life, but this time the goblins wouldn’t lay a finger on it.
“Goblins?” Mahini inhaled sharply, and her ice-blue eyes scanned the area around us in search of enemies. “Where?”
“They aren’t coming just yet,” I explained. “They’re after our treasure. We can’t let them get to our gold, okay, ladies?”
“I’ve never seen an actual goblin before,” Elissa squeaked out. “Are they scary?”
“No scarier than anything else you have bravely faced already,” I pointed out with a sideways smile. “Lissy, you’ve crushed the skulls of the undead, sliced kobolds apart, and smashed in the chests of mercenaries. I think you can handle a few goblins.”
“They’re very dumb,” Mahini added in a sympathetic tone. “The Great One showed me how easy it is to outsmart them.”
“Some can use magic, though,” I warned. “But don’t worry, I’ll be able to spot them. You let me handle any goblin shamans, and you three handle the rest.”
“What’s our battle strategy?” Mahini asked, and her hand clenched around the hilt of her sword. “How many will there be?”
“There will be twenty of them,” I said, and I rubbed my hands together. “That means five each.”
“If you even let us fight,” Eva interjected with a sigh. “You’re always jumping in to parry the blow or push us out of the way at just the right time. I want to see how well I can really fight.”
“You’ve already improved your skills a lot since we left Bullard,” I reassured her, but I knew she was right. I’d been very overprotective of the three most important people in my new life. “But I hear you. I’ll try to step back more. I just never want to see any of you get hurt.”
“Battles leave scars.” Mahini shrugged. “I am not unfamiliar with wounds or pain.”
“I am,” Elissa squeaked. “I don’t think I’ve even been injured once.”
Flashes of deaths from previous attempts flashed through my mind’s eye. The three women had been hurt plenty of times in the past, but I’d always reset back to my save point to prevent them from feeling any pain. I never wanted anything to happen to them, but I couldn’t explain to them the trauma their previous deaths had caused me.
I’d tried to explain my powers to Mahini and Elissa before, but they’d both lost their minds and been unable to comprehend what I was saying. In the end, it caused more trouble than it was worth, so I’d remained vague about my abilities ever since.
“Let’s keep it that way.” Simpler to leave it at that than to inform my wife that she’d indeed been injured in a previous run through.
Being a god did have its burdens.
“I know you want to keep us safe,” Eva continued. “But I want to prove myself to you.”
“Oh, Eva,” I laughed. “You’ve proven yourself a thousand times over.”
“Not in my eyes.” She frowned. “I want to be as fierce as Mahini, as brave as Elissa, and as skilled with a blade as you are, Great One.”
“You’ll have to expand your repertoire of weapons a little, then,” I teased. “Throwing stars are great, but you won’t always be able to keep enough distance to make them efficient. Here, I’ll let you use my daggers against the goblins.”
I pulled the blades free from their sheaths, and then I handed them hilt first to the duke’s daughter. I still had my feather sword and the sorcerer’s dagger strapped to my side, so I wasn’t worried about losing a couple weapons.
“I will try.” Eva lifted her chin, and she flashed me a determined smile. “You’ll see, Great One. I’ll be the greatest warrior in all of Sorreyal.”
“I have utter faith in you.” I grinned. “Now, let’s decide how we’re going to fuck up these goblins’ day.”
We all huddled our heads together as we discussed our battle options. Elissa wanted to take the fight to them, and she suggested hunting down each individual goblin in the woods until they were all annihilated. I admired her spunk, but I wanted a more efficient route. Eva suggested we all simply wait on the wagon until they appeared, but I didn’t think the lazy creatures would attack if they saw the loot was so well-guarded.
Finally, Mahini cleared her throat, and we all fell quiet.
“What if we ambush them?” The former mercenary tilted her head to the side as her ice-blue eyes danced with excitement. “We appear to abandon the wagon, and then we hide in the trees on the edge of the road. When the goblins go after the treasure, we attack from all sides.”
“I like it.” I grinned. “I knew I chose you for a reason.”
“Rescued me is more like it,” Mahini snorted.
The beautiful warrior wasn’t wrong.
When I’d first met her, she’d been so distraught over the death of her Golden Sword comrades that she’d practically given up on living altogether. Mahini had been traumatized and verged on suicidal, but her attitude began to change once she bonded to me. The goblins who took over the Bastianville copper mine were the same ones who’d killed every last member of her mercenary family, but the two of us had sought vengeance against the nasty little creatures.
Now, we faced off against goblins again, but there was no pain in Mahini’s pale-blue gaze. Battle lust shone in her ice-blue eyes instead, and she practically trembled wi
th excitement.
“Alright,” I said as I clapped my hands together. “We have a plan. Let’s get into place, but be patient. We could be waiting for a while longer.”
“How do you know all of these things?” Eva asked as she slid the daggers I’d given her into the top of her thigh-high boots. “About the goblins showing up?”
“It’s a god thing.” I shrugged. “It’s the same way I knew all about you before we’d even spoken.”
“That’s true…” Eva frowned in thought. “You could always predict what I was going to say before I said it. Does that mean you are a prophet?”
“In a way.” I shot her a teasing wink.
“Maybe someday you will explain the secrets of your power,” the duke’s daughter said, and she shook her head with a wry smirk. “It’s fascinating.”
The four of us hopped down from the wagon and went in separate directions toward the trees that lined the dirt road. It was a narrow, worn section of the lane, and the foliage crowded to the edge, which gave the spot an eerie feeling that hadn’t been present when we’d stopped to swim.
I supposed an upcoming battle with nasty gold-digging creatures could do that to any place, though, so I shrugged it off and stayed focused on my task.
I got into place behind a tree nearby, and I kept the wagon in my sights as I settled into a comfortable position. The grotto laid behind me, and the sound of the water slapping against the shore created a soothing backdrop. If I wasn’t about to fight goblins, I would have taken a nap, but as it were, I was already getting excited to spill some of their blood.
Suddenly, I heard a noise in the woods to my left, and I held my breath as I scanned the trees for goblins. The horses started acting antsy again, and then I saw them. The mottled color of their skin camouflaged with the foliage around us, but they waddled with a distinct gait that made them easier to spot.
I would wait until all twenty of them were out of the tree line and like sitting ducks in the middle of the road. Then I would call to the girls, and we would attack.
I watched anxiously while the goblins converged on my wagon, and my heart beat thudded in my ears like a high school drumline. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I slowly slid my feather sword free from its sheath.