Building Harem Town 2

by Eric Vall

  “Well, I suppose I should do something useful in the meantime,” Nicola sighed. “We’re running out of firewood, so I could go to the forest.”

  “And I can wash this pan and the other dishes--” Penelope began.

  “Wait a minute,” Aleia suddenly cut in, and her eyes widened like she’d just had an epiphany. “I think I might know how to get into the old cellar. When I was flying back and forth with the limestone, I thought I saw something strange on the side of the ravine. It almost looked like a big metal circle, and I forgot to tell you until now. I think it’s almost a straight line down from the kitchen to that part of the creek. It’s hidden by the side of the cliff and some thick branches, though. I only caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye.”

  “Should we go look for it?” Penelope glanced between the other two women with bright eyes.

  “I think we should,” Nicola said as she held her canteen high in the air. “To treasure!”

  “To treasure!” the other women cried out, and they all stood up to go look for the gate in the ravine.

  Chapter 14

  “Make sure to bring the flashlight into the tunnel,” I advised the women. “You can actually use it as a weapon, but I want you all well-armed, just in case.”

  “I’ll bring my sword,” Nicola announced.

  “Good,” I agreed. “Aleia, do you feel comfortable carrying the flashlight?”

  “Of course, my lord,” the fairy replied, and she picked up the large, black metal cylinder in one hand and slapped it against her other palm. “Do you think I need anything other than this?”

  “Just bring every weapon you can carry easily,” I replied in a grim voice.

  I didn’t know if anything would actually be lurking in the cellar, but it couldn’t hurt to be cautious. Especially if the priestesses were about to crawl through a tunnel they knew nothing about.

  “What about me?” Penelope asked. “I don’t want to carry a spear down into the passage.”

  “The godly axe?” Nicola suggested. “That’s certainly dangerous.”

  “Yes, if Jack is okay with that.” The naiad nodded, and then she squealed and jumped up and down. “This is so exciting!”

  “You can bring the axe, if that’s the weapon you feel comfortable with,” I told Penelope. “And I hope it’s exciting. You may just end up with a whole lot of wine, but before you leave, tell me more about where this tunnel was, Aleia.”

  “Hmm…” the fairy pondered. “It was down toward the creekbed, but it was further from here than you might expect. It’s to the west, in a place we’ve never explored on foot.”

  “Let me see…” I responded. I zoomed in on my map to the approximate area Aleia was talking about, and I carefully scanned the northern side of the ravine for anything that looked unusual. It took me a few minutes, but I finally caught a glimpse of a black metal circle about a hundred yards west of our current location. The entrance was rendered virtually invisible by thick layers of vines that had curled up over it for centuries, or so I imagined. “Wow, Aleia, I can’t believe you saw that. It’s really hidden.”

  “I was looking around a lot as I got the stones,” the fairy explained. “It got kind of boring just going back and forth for so long, but then I caught a glimpse of something unusual over there.”

  “It looks like it could be the right place, but it is really far away,” I responded. “That would be one gigantic cellar.”

  “Why would they make the tunnel so long?” Penelope asked with a furrowed brow. “It doesn’t seem very convenient, especially when one entrance is completely sealed by wine barrels.”

  “Let’s go find out!” Aleia clapped her hands together as she strapped on her sling and a sack of rocks. “We can all walk over there, and then I’ll fly down to inspect… whatever it is… more closely.”

  The women grabbed their weapons, walked through the walled-in area, and headed out through the door closest to the creek. They all immediately shielded their faces from the bright sunlight as they looked toward the water, and I didn’t think the three of them had ever looked so beautiful. The wind was strong, and their long hair whipped in the breeze as their robes blew around their perfect bodies.

  “It’s so windy!” Penelope giggled as she attempted to hold her thick, blonde waves out of her eyes. “Aleia, where are we supposed to go?”

  “It’s to the right of here,” the fairy said as she pulled her reddish hair into a thick, loose braid. “Follow me.”

  Aleia drifted a couple feet off the ground to lead the other two priestesses, and a gust of wind blew her small body forward through the air a couple yards.

  “Don’t leave us, sister!” Nicola laughed as she and the naiad jogged after the fairy.

  “Whee!” the strawberry-blonde giggled as she was propelled by the breeze. “I love it when the wind is strong. Where are we going exactly, Jack?”

  “You’re going to want to walk another five hundred feet or so along the bank,” I explained. “Then you can head down toward the creek.”

  The further west the stream flowed, the steeper and higher the bank got on the convent side. Where we’d seen the grate, it was around a fifteen foot drop from the ground above to the rocky creek below. Penelope and Nicola weren’t prepared to climb down, so I was going to have to figure out how to get them to the stream.

  “I think it was near this tree…” Aleia said as she stopped flying for a moment, pursed her lips, and gestured to a crooked, scrawny sapling growing out of the side of the bank. “Yes, I definitely remember this place.”

  The fairy floated down over the edge of the slope, and she landed on the rocks directly in front of the grate. Judging by Aleia’s height, the circular opening was at least six feet in diameter.

  “What do you see?” Penelope called out as she and Nicola peered over the side of the bank. “Are we in the right place?”

  “We are,” Aleia called back, “but this door is completely covered in thorny branches.”

  “I want to come down there,” Nicola said. “Jack, how do you want us to get down the banks?”

  “I have an idea,” the fairy cut in with a mischievous tone in her voice. “I can carry you!”

  “Carry us?” Penelope giggled. “I know you’re strong, and you can fly, and… well, I suppose I don’t know any reason why you shouldn’t.”

  “I don’t see any downsides,” I laughed.

  “So, each of you grab one of my hands,” Aleia said as she flew up the side of the bank and hovered near the other two priestesses’ heads. “And then, I’ll carry you down to the bottom.”

  “Grab your hand?” Penelope looked at the fairy like she was crazy. “Can’t you just pick me up around the waist or something?”

  “Come on,” the strawberry-blonde urged the other women. “This is going to be fun.”

  “I’m in,” Nicola laughed. The brunette reached up for Aleia’s hand, and the fairy grabbed the dark-haired woman by the wrist and lifted her into the air. “Aleia, if you drop me, I’m going to kill you.”

  “Sister, why are you showing off?” Penelope giggled as she reached up for the fairy. “You just had to do this a fancy way.”

  “This is fun!” Aleia said with a grin as she slowly lifted Penelope off the ground. “See, no problem. I could go way faster than this, or really high--”

  “No!” Penelope and Nicola screamed out in unison.

  “Just take us to the bottom of the hill, please,” the naiad gulped. “I trust you, sister, but that doesn’t mean this is fun.”

  “You said you wanted to fly, but you don’t actually seem to like it,” Aleia laughed as she deposited the other two women on the stones near the creek.

  “Thank you, Aleia,” Nicola said once she was on solid ground again. “That was definitely… interesting.”

  “Hey, it hasn’t really been raining much lately, has it?” I mused as I examined the slope.

  “We just had that storm the other day, as I’m sure you remember, but n
o rain besides that,” Penelope replied. “Why do you ask?”

  “I just wonder how high the creek gets during wetter times,” I explained. “Does the tunnel ever get completely submerged?”

  “This is puzzling, I have to admit,” the naiad said with sparkling eyes. “When the snow melts in the mountains, the streams and rivers around here overflow. That means you couldn’t even access this tunnel for much of the year.”

  “The door looks pretty solid, though, so maybe it doesn’t get wet,” I suggested.

  “Alright, I need to see what’s in here if it’s so special,” Nicola said as she pulled out her sword and started to slash at the vines.

  Penelope used her axe, and Aleia slashed away with her dagger to work at the twisted branches, but the women hadn’t made much progress even after a few minutes.

  “My thumb is already bleeding from the thorns,” Penelope pouted as she stuck the injured finger in her mouth, but then she started to hack through the foliage again with her axe. “But I don’t care, as I’m determined to make it through here.”

  “It’s still going to be light out for a while,” I predicted. “At the very least, you should be able to get the door open today.”

  “Once it’s open, I’m going in,” the naiad informed me. “I don’t care what time it is!”

  “We’ll see,” I laughed. “I don’t know if you really want to explore a spooky tunnel at midnight…”

  “But we have your godly light, master,” Aleia reminded me. “And it’s going to be dark in there no matter what time it is.”

  “Just try to get in there quickly,” I told the priestesses. “For some reason, I feel better about it when it’s daytime.”

  “I hate these stupid plants,” Penelope complained as she pulled a thick, spiky stem off the metal door and threw it on the ground. The woody vines were about an inch in diameter, and they had heart-shaped leaves the size of my palm. They bloomed with multitudes of striped, white and blue flowers, and they were also covered in thousands of tiny thorns.

  “I wonder how long it’s been since anyone’s been in here,” Nicola mused. The brunette knelt down on the ground to cut through the vines near the bottom of the door, but even with her sharp sword, the growth was hard to slash through. “I don’t think these vines die every winter, so who knows how long it’s been growing like this.”

  “There’s a lock over here,” Aleia announced. “It’s very rusty, though, and we’ll need to clear more branches before we can open it.”

  “We’re not going to be stopped by one rusty little lock,” Penelope giggled. “I can always use water from the spring to clean it.”

  “Of course we aren’t going to be stopped, sister,” Nicola laughed. “I’m not giving up that easily. Spring water sounds like a good idea.”

  The priestesses worked for several more minutes, and it started to get easier after they’d cut through the tough outer layer of foliage.

  “So, should we try the latch?” Aleia asked. “I think we’ve cleared enough vines now.”

  “It looks like you have,” I agreed. “Good work, everyone.”

  “It looks like this piece just turns,” Penelope said as she inspected the mechanism. The blue woman attempted to move the small black piece of metal, but it was too corroded to budge. “Hmm, I’m going to try some blessed water on it.”

  “Is the water down here blessed, too?” Aleia asked.

  “It will be when I touch it, silly,” the naiad laughed. She bent down and collected some creek water in her cupped, cerulean hands, and then she poured as much as she could onto the lock. The rust melted away, and the latch looked like it was brand new. “See?”

  Penelope smiled with pride, wiped off her hands on her clothing, and attempted to turn the lock. It easily slid open, and the naiad grinned even wider.

  “Nice, Penelope!” I told the blue woman.

  “Well… should we go in?” Aleia asked as she looked with doubt at the door. “I have the light…”

  “Are you sure you want to go in front of us?” Penelope asked. “I can take the flashlight if you wish, sister.”

  “No, I don't want to be left behind,” the fairy gulped. “I’ll go first…”

  “I don’t mind going last,” Nicola offered. “If anything comes up behind me, I’ll just slash it to death with my sword.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I told the brunette. “Take no prisoners.”

  Aleia nudged the gate forward with the edge of the flashlight, and the hinges let out a horrible shrieking noise as the metal scraped across the ground.

  The round opening was paved with surprisingly-intact, rectangular gray stones, but it was pitch-black past the small area where the sunlight entered the entrance to the cellar, so it was impossible to tell if the stone walls continued.

  “Turn the flashlight on,” I suggested to Aleia. “If you shine it down the tunnel, you’ll be able to see there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Okay,” the strawberry-blonde gulped, and she turned the head of the Maglite and aimed it through the doorway. The tunnel twisted around a turn about fifteen feet ahead, which made visibility limited. “Let’s go, everyone.”

  The priestesses walked single-file into the tunnel, and I immediately heard a loud sloshing noise.

  “Ugh,” Penelope complained as she glanced down at her feet. “It’s all wet in here. The ground is covered in puddles.”

  Murky pools dotted the floor of the passageway, and the women began to try and leap over them.

  “You really need something better than those sandals,” I commented. “We’re going to have to get you some boots before winter comes.”

  “The gnomes have nice boots,” the naiad said with a furrowed brow. “I don’t know if they made them or bought them in the city, though.”

  “We can’t wear sandals every day of the year, can we?” Aleia asked as she swung the beam of light around the inside of the tunnel, but the way the passage twisted back and forth made it impossible to see more than twenty feet ahead at any given time. “These shoes aren’t good for much.”

  “They were simple to acquire and easy to carry,” Penelope reminded the other priestess. “It was difficult to pick and choose from among my belongings when I left the orphanage, but I moved quickly because my spiritual vision was so strong. I knew I would have to obtain more material possessions throughout my journey, but that was fine with me, because even though my pack was light, my heart was full.”

  “Oh, Penelope,” Nicola sighed, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “You truly have a way with words. That’s a very flowery way to say you don’t have another pair of shoes.”

  “And I had to leave my home in the middle of the night,” Aleia informed us. “Once I’d stolen the money that man had given my parents, there was no choice but to run away.”

  “Well, I’ll make sure you’re well prepared for the cold weather,” I assured the women.

  “It’s starting to slope up,” the fairy said to Penelope and Nicola as the three trudged along. The women had given up trying to stay out of the muddy water at some point, and their calves were spotted with dirt and grime.

  “Can we stop for a minute?” Penelope gasped as she put the axe down on the ground and brushed her hair out of her eyes, and Nicola stumbled over the blue woman.

  “Careful, sister!” the brunette chided the naiad.

  “I thought I heard something,” Penelope explained as her blue eyes darted around the dark tunnel. “It sounded… squeaky.”

  “Look at all these cracks running along the bottom of the passage,” Nicola said as she gestured with her foot. “Plenty of room for mice.”

  “Or giant rats!” Aleia whirled around and tickled Penelope on her sides, and the blue woman shrieked.

  “Don’t do that, Aleia!” the naiad squealed. “Although, I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Just chop their heads off with the axe,” Nicola said in a matter-of-fact voice as the priestesses began to walk uphill
through the tunnel again, and Aleia and Penelope started to laugh.

  “You sound so cold-blooded, sister,” Penelope giggled. “But yes, if I have to…”

  “You’ll decapitate a rat?” I finished the cerulean beauty’s sentence.

  “Yes, I will.” The naiad nodded solemnly. “I’d do anything for my sisters.”

  “Eeek!” Nicola squealed suddenly, and she seemed to jump about a foot into the air.

  “Very funny, Nicola,” Aleia said as she continued to lead the group. “Don’t try to scare us.”

  “I swear I felt something furry brush against my ankle,” the brunette protested. “Penelope, get ready with your axe.”

  “Just impale it on your sword,” I suggested.

  Things had started to get a little morbid around here.

  “Noooo…” Aleia sharply inhaled as she rounded another corner. “It can’t be…”

  “What?” Penelope gasped.

  “I don’t want you to scream…” the fairy began, “but I think I see bones up there.”

  “Bones?” Nicola scoffed. “It’s probably only a dead raccoon or something.”

  “No, these look like… fairy bones…” the strawberry-blonde said in an ominous tone.

  “Give me that light,” the brunette commanded, and she promptly stomped past Penelope and grabbed the Maglite out of Aleia’s hand. “What are you talking about, Aleia? Where?”

  “They’re right up there,” the fairy whimpered and gestured in front of her. “Don’t you see something long and white on the ground?”

  I looked where the strawberry-blonde was pointing, and there was definitely not a fairy skeleton in the tunnel.

  “Nope,” I replied. “Not this time.”

  “That’s an old, bleached-out stick, Aleia,” Nicola sighed, and she stroked the fairy on the arm. “I’m glad you were wrong about the bones, though. I’m starting to think this tunnel isn’t going to be as exciting as we were hoping. It’s mostly spooky and gross, but maybe we’ll have to drink some of that wine after all.”

  “I wonder when it opens up into the actual cellar,” Penelope panted for breath as she hiked slowly along behind the other two women.