Build-A-Harem- The Island Collection

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  For the record, I don’t particularly like lying to people, much less when it’s just to get my ass out of the fire, but at the same time I don’t particularly like pissing off the people I’m sleeping with.

  “A little something, huh?” Cassie said, clearly unconvinced but, like Jesse, curious, “And what would this little something be?”

  “That I won’t tell you,” I replied, internally high-fiving myself for swiftly dodging the question, “otherwise there really wouldn’t be any point.”

  Cassie seemed to be slowly drifting towards believing me, but right before she could ask another question or prod me further Fern started to stir under the covers.

  “Everything okay?” the sleepy half-elf asked as she lifted herself up onto her elbow, “Is Dax alright?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, surprising her with my presence, “I was just talking to Cassie about…”

  “Doing a few more renovations,” Cassie finished, shooting me a quick wink as she did, “he was just saying how he thought it might be a good idea to rework the shelter so that it isn’t so spread out.”

  “Exactly,” I said with a smile, “but I’ve just got to head out for a little while, going to see if I can find that succubus.”

  “And leave us defenseless?” Fern asked, proving that she was conscious enough to argue.

  “No, of course not,” I replied before spawning in two cutlasses near the foot of the bed, “just didn’t want you to wake up with swords next to you is all.”

  I felt like an idiot for not having given them weapons earlier, but it wasn’t like there’d really been any reason to worry about them getting attacked until that point, and I hadn’t thought about it until I’d pulled that lie out of my ass.

  “How long have you had these?” Cassie asked as she leaned over the edge of the bed and grabbed one of the swords by its handle.

  “Got them off Seastrider, why?”

  “I don’t know, just would’ve been nice to have gotten them sooner is all,” Cassie replied, causing me to worry for a few seconds that she was pissed at me again, “although I guess things haven’t really slowed down enough since she came around.”

  I nodded at that after successfully managing to mask a sigh of relief, “Can you use it?”

  “I know my way around a knife,” Fern chimed in before grabbing the other sword without getting out from under the covers, “and I imagine most of the skills are transferable.”

  Understandably, we were all kind of surprised to learn that Fern knew about anything combat-related, but we were all smart enough not to bring it up.

  “Alright then,” I said, turning towards the rough direction of the wrecked galleon then turning some more when I remembered Fern wasn’t supposed to know where I was going, “see you later.”

  And with that, Jesse and I were gone.

  Now, I think I should clarify that I didn’t just want to get away from them, it was just that I wanted to get moving as fast as possible so that I wouldn’t forget what I was supposed to be doing.

  “Ship then gifts, ship then gifts, ship then gifts…” I muttered to myself as Jesse and I moved.

  “What’re you goin’ on about?” Jesse asked.

  “I don’t want to forget after I search the ship and go back without anything for them.” I replied before starting up my mantra again.

  “Okay…” Jesse trailed off, “but have you considered, and this is some pretty out there thinking, that it might be an idea for you to just write down a note?”

  I was about to repeat what I’d said earlier about my lack of a notepad, then remembered the software in the Toolbox.

  “I’m such an idiot,” I half-laughed as I came to a stop, recalling how badly it had gone when I’d tried to type and move, “why am I such an idiot?”

  “Eh, you’re only human.” Jesse lightheartedly jabbed, “Besides, as much as you’ve been improving, you’ve still only been here, what, two, three days?”

  It’s funny, I actually had to think on that, and I didn’t even work out the answer and just ended up shrugging, “Don’t know, that sounds about right though.”

  “Right, which says to me that you’ve still got some wiggle room before it gets to the point of being unreasonable,” Jesse said with me only half listening as I went ahead and added a few more notes while I had the screen open, “kind of like a new job.”

  “Mmhm…”

  I have to be honest, for a second there I was kind of worried that by ‘improving’ my personality I was going to end up becoming a bit of a douche, but then I figured out a way to prevent that.

  “Sorry,” I said, closing the screen and giving Jesse my full attention, “just wanted to knock that over.”

  “It’s really not a problem,” Jesse chuckled, “but thanks. Anyway, what do you want to do first?”

  “I figured ship then gifts,” I replied before restarting the walk, “then ‘fun times’.”

  I’m not too proud to admit that I did ‘jazz hands’ when I said that last part.

  “Fun times,” Jesse huffed amusedly, “didn’t you freak out yesterday about ‘fun times’?”

  “Yeah, but I handled those cat girls pretty well,” I said more defensively than I’d intended, “and they were cat girls, which is just a whole other kind of overwhelming.”

  “True, but you’ve also admitted that it’s different in here,” Jesse replied, forcing me to think back to when I actually said that to him and, as a result, losing the argument before he’d finished his sentence, “more real, more consequences.”

  “Fair,” I sighed with a nod as I formulated an argument, “however, I would argue that now that I know what I’m getting into and it’s not just being sprung on me I’ll handle it better.”

  “Ah yes,” Jesse said in a very proper sort of way, “but that means that the burden of initiating is on you and, with that, the possibility of getting a less than ideal response.”

  I went to respond to that, realized my response didn’t make sense, then sighed again, “God damn… Why do you have to shatter my self-esteem like that, man?”

  “Heh, ain’t like I’m usin’ a sledgehammer,” Jesse replied with his regular voice, “more like one o’ them tiny little things doctors hit your knees with.”

  Again, he was right.

  For all my confidence building, I still wasn’t doing all that great in the self-esteem side of things.

  I realize that that might sound a bit weird, but basically the way I look at it is that confidence is what you exude, it’s what brings in the people and gets you ahead in the world, whereas self-esteem is what leads to you banging chicks while flexing at yourself in a mirror.

  Self-esteem wasn’t exactly something I could just fake either, it had to be real and it had to come from within, or some other tacky crap like that.

  Now that I think about it, not thinking of it as ‘tacky crap’ would’ve been a good first step, but hey, everything has a learning curve.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Damn…” I murmured as we got to the site of the galleon crash, “that’s a whole lot worse than I thought it was…”

  “Heh, tell me about it…” Jesse muttered in response, letting me know that what I was looking at wasn’t exactly normal.

  The ship had clearly exploded, which I knew, but from what I could see it appeared that it had then imploded, resulting in a Fortress of Solitude-like structure.

  “I thought you’d already seen this?” I asked after I’d finally worked up the courage to start walking towards it.

  “I had,” Jesse replied, “but it wasn’t like this. I mean, it was kind of crumpled, but this is all… different.”

  “So how do we know there’s anything of value in there then?”

  Jesse didn’t get a chance to respond before, with an almighty crunching sound, the galleon collapsed in on itself a little more, stopping me in my tracks.

  “Yeah, no, I ain’t goin’ anywhere near that fuckin’ thing,” I scoffed, “how the Hell d
idn’t you know this was happening?”

  “Must’ve sped up since I was last here,” Jesse said as he stood almost unnaturally still behind me, “look, I just thought there was going to be some cool loot, I didn’t think it’d go all Iron Throne on our ass.”

  I went to chuckle at that apt comparison, but was stopped as the ship imploded some more, reducing its size by at least half.

  “Alright,” I whispered, fearing that if I spoke too loudly I’d awaken whatever it was that was destroying what was once a mighty vessel, “I’m thinking it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to take a few steps bac-”

  And then it happened again.

  And again.

  And again.

  The collapses got to the point where they were about as frequent as a hummingbird’s wing flaps, each one louder than the last, until, with a dinosaur-like roar, it stopped.

  No warning.

  No slowing down.

  It just stopped.

  “That’s… unsettling.” I muttered after it was clear that the football-sized chunk of wood wasn’t going to start imploding again.

  “Yeah… I’m kind of waiting for it to explode…”

  “Glad to hear we’re in the same boat,” I replied before letting out a little chuckle, “no pun intended.”

  “No pun heard,” Jesse said, “that is… was a ship, not a boat.”

  I didn’t really want to argue what I saw as pedantic, so I went ahead and slowly started approaching the ship once more, fearing that if I left it for too long it would end up getting picked up by some of the lapping water and washed out to sea.

  “Be careful,” Jesse warned once I was within a few feet of the spikey ball, “and get ready to grab it with your Toolbox.”

  “Quit micromanaging,” I snapped, the tension that was building within me apparently manifesting in the form of some snarkiness, “the less distracted I am, the better.”

  At any other time I’m sure Jesse would’ve responded with something witty or crass, but not that time.

  No, my lizard friend was more than happy to let me err on the side of caution and patience as I inched my way towards the scary little ball of death.

  Then, right as I was about to get within spitting distance, my hand started to vibrate like crazy.

  “Okay, definitely more unsettling now…” I trailed off as the Toolbox came to life, sending long, tentacle-like beams of light from my hand and arm to the collapsed ship, “Any suggestions!?”

  “I… um… Try not to get electrocuted!”

  As you can tell, Jesse was almost over prepared for the slightly terrifying situation that was unfolding and, as a result, was able to give me relevant and useful advice.

  I know tone doesn’t come across so great with this medium, but that was sarcastic.

  “Stop,” I quietly pleaded with the possibly sentient Toolbox, “I’ll do anything you want, I promise. I’ll… I’ll… Oh, we can go mining or something? Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  The Toolbox, unsurprisingly, wasn’t answering.

  No, the Toolbox was far too busy scaring the absolute shit out of me as it, with a newly created yellow beam of light, started to make the increasingly worrisome former ship vibrate and creak.

  I couldn’t run away though, not because I was scared stiff or anything, but because my arm was locked in place by the Toolbox, and while I could move the rest of my body, escaping from a body part that has gone rogue and is still attached was proving to be no simple task.

  “What do I do!?” I called over, trying my best to sound as manly as possible while almost literally pissing myself.

  “Just wait it out!” Jesse replied less confidently than I would have liked, “I’m sure you’ll be fine!”

  I was about to say something snarky at that but then, without warning, the Toolbox finished with an innocent little chime and a notification, the remnants of the ship breaking down and disappearing as it did so.

  “Holy crap…” I muttered, reading the long list of things I’d just acquired, “Clothes, wood recipes, a spyglass…”

  “Look at that,” Jesse said as he cautiously approached me, “some kind of map fell out.”

  It took a lot of effort to look away from the veritable smorgasbord of stuff I’d just unlocked, but I managed to do it after accepting I could get back to reading any time.

  “Why do you think it didn’t get absorbed with the other stuff?” I asked as I started moving towards the map, discovering that both my arms and my legs were still trembling a little following the intense vibrations from the Toolbox.

  “Guess there must be something special about it,” Jesse replied, “or maybe it was under the ship when it collapsed?”

  “Maybe…” I murmured before tentatively picking up the piece of parchment with my right hand, taking extra special care not to damage it for fear it was a unique item.

  And then I touched it with my left hand.

  Let me tell you, the Toolbox did not like that.

  Or maybe it liked it a lot.

  I don’t know, point is that the intricate piece of hardware sucked the map into my hand so quick and with so much force I was actually thrown about five feet onto my side, the only explanation given being the message ‘Map Updated’ which disappeared almost as soon as it had popped up.

  “Why does this thing insist on hurting me?” I groaned as I got up to my feet and rubbed my bruised ribs with a seethe.

  “I don’t think it wants to hurt you,” Jesse chuckled, the shock of what had happened over the last few seconds clearly having waned somewhat, “I just think you’re about as easy to topple as Jenga.”

  “It’s always something wrong with me, isn’t it?” I scoffed, adding ‘work on balance and center of gravity’ to my mental checklist.

  “Eh, sometimes,” Jesse replied nonchalantly before jutting his chin at my hand, “get anything good?”

  “I’d say so, yeah,” I said with a nod, “definitely enough stuff to get some serious construction done anyway.”

  “Good, good,” Jesse murmured as other things clearly occupied his mind, “alright, guess we better get moving then.”

  “Where?” I asked confusedly, the stress and panic having wrecked some havoc on my short-term memory.

  “The girls’ gifts, remember?” Jesse replied before letting out an amused scoff, “Here I was startin’ to wonder why you even needed those notes.”

  “Screw you, dude,” I chuckled, “ain’t my fault my arm damn near shook itself off.”

  “Alright, you have a fair point,” Jesse said, clearly just wanting to get away from the subject, “which way should we head?”

  I had to really think about that one for a few seconds as I tried to pull up a layout of the island in my head and failed, bringing me to an amusing realization.

  “Heh, guess we could go check out the other side of the water,” I suggested, “haven’t really scoped out that area much.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Jesse replied with a nod, “Might be an idea to arm yourself though, what with the succubus bein’ out and about.”

  “Right…” I trailed off as I retroactively panicked about how defenseless I’d been up until that point.

  I got past that pretty quickly though, and armed myself with an axe with barely a thought.

  “Really?” Jesse laughed, “You’re goin’ to go with that? Don’t you have guns and swords at your disposal?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, hiding the fact that I had sort of forgotten and had just defaulted to the axe, “but I know I can use this.”

  “How hard can it be to use a gun?”

  “Exactly,” I said, tapping myself on the side of my head with the blunt edge of the axe, “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t exactly have a revolver or a shotgun, do I?”

  “I suppose,” Jesse replied with a shrug, “whatever, as long as you’re happy.”

  “I am.” I lied.

  “Good, then let’s get a move on.”

  After that Jesse w
as pretty quick to slither into the newly ship-free water, leaving me to linger on the shore for a few seconds and wonder if my pride and being right was worth not having a gun at my side.

  I decided yes and waded in after Jesse, breathing a silent sigh of relief as I noticed that the water not only didn’t have any debris floating around, but was also completely free of bodies.

  Thinking back on it, I’m kind of glad I wasn’t packing heat, but at the same time even then I knew not taking a gun was a symptom of my shitty self-esteem and that by allowing my pride to get in the way I was potentially leaving myself in a position to get screwed by Red.

  And no, not in the fun way.

  CHAPTER 8

  We crossed the water without any trouble, but after a few minutes of walking along the beach Jesse picked up on a problem I hadn’t noticed.

  “So… I’m just thinkin’, why are we doin’ this?”

  Needless to say, I was kind of confused by that question, “Because I want to cheer up the girls? Get back in their good books?”

  “Yeah, no, I know that part,” Jesse replied, “but we’re just walkin’ along the same stretch o’ sand we’ve walked along before. Are we even lookin’ for anything specific? Or are we just wandering and hopin’ for the best?”

  “Ugh…” I sighed before letting out a slightly annoyed but also amused huff, “kind of wished you’d brought that up sooner.”

  “Figured you had a plan is all,” Jesse chuckled, “but yeah, don’t worry, from now on I’m not goin’ to assume you’ve thought of… anything.”

  “Ha-dee-fucking-ha.” I muttered as we came to a stop and I activated the Toolbox’s screen, “Right, let’s see what these two like…”

  Most of it was pretty obvious and run-of-the-mill, not trying to stereotype or anything, but finding out that they both liked chocolate and bubble baths wasn’t altogether surprising.

  The good news is that after a few seconds of digging I was able to find out that Fern really liked yellow flowers and Cassie loved hammers.

  I figured the hammer would be pretty easy and that it would just be a matter of either finding it in my available crafting items or doing some simple deduction and figuring out what would go into creating it, so I decided to go ahead and focus on finding some yellow flowers first.