by Brent Roth
Turning to my right, I met Selene's gaze as she followed up on Kate's previous comment, "To think it wasn't long ago that we had only known of the orphanage and the Holy Order. You've opened the world to us and I'm grateful."
I was bad with these kinds of things… even though I always wanted to hear praise, compliments, thanks or reassurance that I had done right, the truth was that deep down I lacked the belief in myself that such things were genuine. I hesitated to believe, I couldn't believe. I didn't deserve what was being said to or of me.
I was a failure after all.
As the scene grew quiet and I continued to stare at the now far-gone sun, emotions of sadness and regret had flooded me while the moon had risen in the sun's place. The cold night sky shined brightly with streams of vibrant colors as the primarily red and green aurora distracted me from my conflicted emotions.
No longer wanting to deal with such things, I turned around and pulled both women closer.
The sound of the waves crashing continued on and on, helping to lull me into a state of rest. Closing my eyes, I hoped the night would not be a restless one.
Falling asleep with both women at my side and the fire burning strongly just behind, the moon seemed to have taken pity on me as it kept the spotlight fixed above.
At the very least, I wouldn't be in the dark tonight.
Chapter 32: Thoughts of Companions' Past
(Sunday, May 9th Game Day / Friday, February 12th Real Day)
It was Friday night in the real world and we had just returned from our trip to the Northern Triangle. As Katherine, Selene, and Barkley left me behind so they could bathe in the river before dark, I trudged along alone with three empty sleds behind me.
In five hours the town square would be flooded with 52 Non-Combatant NPCs and 44 Combat NPCs… a slight increase due to the 16 spouses of the 44 combatants, along with 7 children. I wasn't actually sure if the lodge could hold that many.
Yeah, I went a little crazy with the Draft.
Though I originally was only expecting to draft 16 Non-Combatant NPCs along with their 13 tag-alongs, by the time I had finished selling all of the pelts I had received 8,932 copper coins. I wasn't planning to sell all of the furs originally, nor was I planning to keep all of the profit. But, Katherine and Selene had urged me to do so for the betterment of the settlement.
In the end I used 8,800 copper coins to tag 44 Combat NPCs, broken up as 40 Warriors and 4 Priests.
All of the Shield-bearing and Archer archetypes were already tagged and I had no interest in engaging in a bidding war while other NPCs were available at the minimum entry level cost. It wasn't really surprising to find those two types already claimed, either.
A shield wall with archers behind made for an effective deterrence after all.
So instead, I opted to recruit Axe-wielding Warriors that could use Bows as a secondary. It was the more economical, and fitting choice.
But I still wasn't sure if the lodge could accommodate everyone.
No matter how you cut it, 96 people, even if they were NPCs with an Artificial Intelligence, were a large number of individuals. If every person had an 8'x4' place to sleep they would fit just fine, but yeah.
I was a little worried, but in truth I was more excited at the prospects for the future. Buildings could be built anyways; there would be plenty of man power going forward from now on.
While waiting with giddy anticipation I attempted to flirtatiously tease Selene a bit but she was having none of it, and I dare not flirt with Katherine because she would certainly have at it.
I didn't want Selene to be receptive really; it was just a way to burn time as we all sat around waiting. So while bored and with nothing to do, I decided to take a nap.
Three hours had passed while I slept inside the cabin with Selene and Katherine.
When I woke, I saw Katherine had rolled off the bed and was now lying next to me.
I was a patient man.
I had control over my emotions, over my desires.
But… it's not fair when an exceptional beauty is teasing you with her chest laid bare in front of your eyes as her hair slightly curls around her face, seemingly accentuating her already perfect features with the effect of focusing your gaze to her soft lips.
Looking away from her face leads to her ample assets which are quite deadly in their own right. If one decides to skip past and look further down to her exposed navel, toned from countless hours of exercise and work….
I stopped myself there and rolled around to face the other direction. Lost to my thoughts I attempted to at least change the direction my mind was heading in.
A few minutes later I could feel the warmth of a body inching closer.
Soon that warmth was in direct contact.
Katherine had decided to cuddle alone with me for the first time. My eyes were opened wide from the shock of it all, that Katherine could or would take such initiative. As she wrapped her arms around me and intertwined her legs with mine I could hardly contain myself.
I was getting a bit excited.
My chest had swelled a bit from the sudden adrenaline as my heart fluttered slightly. It had been awhile since I had such intimate contact with a female, the last time being with Selene nearly three weeks ago real-time in my moment of weakness. Before Selene it had been a very long time… which brought up the interesting point, that you don't realize how badly you're missing something until the opportunity to have it arises.
Katherine was pushing up on a rough boundary.
I wasn't sure I could remain caged.
Actually, I wasn't sure why I was trying to resist.
Why was I resisting?
As I started questioning my reasoning, I had started to think back on what Katherine and Selene had told me about themselves over the past few days. I closed my eyes and reminisced as I tried to distract myself....
* * *
There wasn't a single cloud in the light blue sky while the sun seemed to have settled directly above, flooding the world we knew with its warming radiance. The snow on the ground had all but melted as the green foliage peeked through, watching the clear water of the river flowing by and out to the big deep blue.
In the middle of it all stood a young woman only nineteen of age, with long naturally wavy dark brown hair that parted to either side and slinked past her shoulders.
She stood waist deep in the river as she bathed while covering her rather large bosom with an arm. A healthy yet slender girl standing nearly five-foot nine with hips a bit wider than the average woman and a midsection that had been toned through continuous activity, her skin was of a softly tanned white and glistened in the cool water of the spring.
But of all her striking features, it was her eyes that were the most captivating: tri-color eyes with an inner deep green ring blended with an outer light blue ring, split horizontally across the middle with a soft yet dark gray that lightly fanned out from the center of the iris.
The mixture was a dazzling array of colors that appeared both green and blue from a distance but clearly showed the soft splatter of the dark gray upon closer inspection.
Her eyes were mesmerizing.
The type of eyes one could gaze into and lose track of time.
As she bathed in the center of the river a man was lying in the grass along the edge, an arm over his face to shield him from the sun with the other arm underneath his head. He listened to the young female that was telling a story of the past, a story of hardship and fulfillment.
The hardship that the young girl faced was a similar fate many young children faced in the time period, the loss of both parents at a young age due to famine or war.
She had lost her father to battle and then her mother succumbed to the cold one winter night, leaving her alone and without the ability to survive by herself. She was fortunate though, as a traveling convent was passing through the town and offered the young orphan a chance.
She took the chance and as the years went by soon develop
ed into an intelligent young woman, keen on the ways of the Holy Arts and respected by her peers for her skill. But she had also found confusion while growing up amongst the nuns and priests when she had started to develop into what she thought was an attractive young adult.
She was scolded and told by the other nuns that she was unattractive, unsightly, and that her body was needlessly shameful.
The Priests never paid any attention to her and seemed to ignore her more and more as the days went by. When the only compliments she ever received were from the depraved individuals she came across in the towns and villages she visited, her confidence in her appearance had started to disappear completely.
When she asked a sister what was considered attractive, she was met with the reply that physical beauty is nothing more than sinful temptation for the lustful and it was shameful and disgraceful to even consider.
She had started to regard herself as cursed by her appearance, the appearance of her mother who was once lauded as a beautiful woman. She felt her mother must have died as punishment for her looks and now she too would suffer the same fate.
It was at that time that she became better acquainted with a young girl at the local orphanage. At this point the young female of twenty years with a five-foot seven stature that had sprawled out next to the man decided to take over.
She had been intently listening to the story she knew all too well as she was drying off in the spring-time sun. With nothing more than two light wool cloths covering both her modest chest and moderately sized hips; she was doing her best to appear seductive.
She was playing with her short-cut straight raven hair that hardly reached past her neck while strongly gazing over at the man next to her.
Her eyes were of a deep titanium gray color that had a strong bronze tint to it in the sunlight that was quite exceptional in their own right, if not entirely unique. The droplets of water that had been dripping off her chiseled abs certainly did not belie the level of fitness that she had been accustomed to either. Biting her lip, she was vying for attention from the man, but he paid her no heed.
Continuing where her friend had left off, she began to tell her own story.
This girl was an orphan as well but fell outside of the Holy Order and was only provided shelter and a minimum of food in return for manual labor.
Her life had taken a slightly rougher path to start but she was confident she could make it. She had learned of archery via a local huntsman that took pity on her and used the skills she had developed to put meat on the table.
In time she became the main provider for the children at the orphanage as she supplemented their meals with rabbits and foxes caught in the outskirts of the forest. Her reputation had developed to the point where it soon preceded her where ever she went.
When she came of full adult age at eighteen, she often took tasks to provide as an armed escort for the traveling convent as they moved from one village to another. Though it wasn't paid work she would be able to travel with her close friend and it gave her the opportunity to explore the land outside of the small town she had been caged in.
The close friend was a young priestess that she had grown up with and they shared a similar past as she had lost both parents to war and the other lost her father first, then her mother later. They were one year apart and as the elder, she felt like an older sister to the priestess she had first met at the age of nine.
Though the way they grew up differed significantly, they still remained close friends as the years went by. Two years had passed since they first set out to travel, constantly traveling around the Northern Kingdoms spreading their word, helping and healing where they could.
Then one day they had made a decision to travel to the far North, something that hadn't been done in decades.
The priests and nuns believed it would be a good idea to check in on the Northern Triangle and a few villages on the way. She had no opinion on the matter and had no obligation to follow but preferred to accompany her friend on the fateful journey.
Both women had grown up as orphans and despite the similar origins and being surrounded by many of the same people, they had developed into two distinctly different people, with nearly opposite personalities and experiences.
Still, the saying that opposites attract certainly held true. The self-conscious, unconfident, and seemingly immature priestess and the confident, grounded, and mature hunter had formed a strong bond of friendship through a lifetime's worth of struggle.
As the man continued to lie under the sun, pretending not to have noticed the strong gaze of the woman beside him, he soon found himself in a precarious position.
The raven haired girl had rolled over and placed her face besides his.
With the brunette facing the other way while in the middle of the river completely unaware of what was going on behind her, the raven haired girl stole a long kiss.
* * *
I opened my eyes to find myself staring at the empty cabin walls before me.
With only the moonlight peering through the slight cut-out in the wall, it was exceptionally dark.
Having finished my recollection of the day by the river less than a few days past, I found myself no less troubled by the sudden actions of Katherine and that of Selene. And to make matters worse, I could now feel a gaze coming from the other side of the room.
Whether Katherine was aware of Selene's actions or not I was unable to tell, but I fully believed Selene had not informed her.
Selene's actions had been sporadic as well, as there had been nothing since we spent the night at the Earl's, then there was the river incident, and now there was clearly some tension as she silently watched Katherine and I.
I hadn't been romantically steady and the fault was solely my own.
In the months building up to this moment I had playfully flirted with both women as I wished to progress my relationship with both.
It was a greedy, selfish thing to do.
But, they were also my companions and I needed their loyalty.
Trust was a harder thing to level, but affection on the other hand….
Increasing their affection for me was the easiest and fastest way to earn their loyalty. In a sense, getting both women to fall for me was a necessary evil, a requirement to retain their services. The game had forced my hand; it created the rules that bound me to the path of a harem king.
I could only go along for the ride.
Well, that's what I told myself.
In my entire life, I had never once been attracted to more than one woman at a time. But I also was never put in a situation where I was constantly surrounded by two highly attractive women that both had their own respective charms. In the end though, in my moment of weakness in front of the ocean that one night past, I had made the fatal mistake. I had brought them both in to comfort me in that time of need and had opened the gates. Even if it was nothing more than physical contact, it sparked the fire for Katherine.
The fault was squarely on my shoulders.
The situation was not something I had intended or wanted.
I knew something like this would end up happening… I knew a storm was brewing the moment there were two women stuck in a single room with one bed and a single male.
Yeah… not knowing what to do in this situation was the worst part. I continued to lay there, unmoving and unreceptive to Katherine's advances as Selene stared on from the bed.
I was in a bad spot.
I shook my head, in my head.
Chapter 33: Developing Culture
(Monday, May 10th Game Day / Saturday, February 13th Real Day)
As time ticked over from Friday to Saturday the sun rose just like clockwork. The village's center, which was nothing more than an outdoor campfire, was suddenly engulfed in a large beam of light. That beam of light faded for a moment then shined once more, repeating the shine and fade alternation ninety-six times in total.
It was the same golden ray of light that had brought me to this world,
the very one that spawned every adventurer around the continent.
With each beam of light a new NPC arrived with a bag of belongings like a soldier back from deployment. The noise of freshly arrived recruits woke Katherine who quickly moved away from me while heavily blushing as Selene pretended to be asleep.
I turned around and smiled at Katherine while staring straight past her, staring directly at Selene.
Her eyes were just slightly cracked and made eye-contact with mine.
Katherine didn't catch on but Selene was now aware that I knew she was awake.
I needed to clear the air at some point; it wouldn't do to have two friends going after the same guy. Someone always ends up losing and more likely than not everyone will be hurt in the end.
I eventually rolled over and got up, making my way outside as the two girls changed silently inside. There was clearly tension there but it seemed to be mostly embarrassment from Katherine's side. I wasn't sure exactly what the tension was from on Selene's part… jealousy, anger, doubt… I had no clue.
Opening the cabin's door I found myself staring at a quickly growing mass of NPCs that almost seemed to be getting a bit out of hand. They weren't unruly or anything of the sort, but they were simply showing up too quickly and in too many numbers.
They didn't have the time to even set their bags down after spawning, having to be ushered out of the way for the next arrival.
Katherine made her way out of the cabin first and then Selene followed a minute or two later to join me at my side. In front of us the spectacle of ninety-six fresh recruits lining up to receive their orders was not just inspiring but awe-inspiring.
I never thought I would be in this sort of position, to be giving commands to my own personal army with two female companions fighting for my affection on my left and right.