by Noah Layton
Chapter Thirteen
Before heading to the trading post we stopped off at the Rourke Homestead. Our journey brought us not to the green fields, but to two sides of a fence that had recently been built.
Holy shit, I thought to myself. Jeremiah’s certainly been busy.
We arrived through the gap in the fence and crossed along the edge of the pasture, passing by the taurems as they grazed on the grass and arriving at the front of the old house. It was starting to look much better.
Jeremiah came rushing out of the house as we arrived in the front yard where Lara and I had first faced off with him.
Santana and her father embraced quickly. They hadn’t seen each other for days, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise.
Lola appeared in the doorway of the house, washing her dirty hands off with a rag.
‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ Jeremiah said, shaking hands with me.
‘Nothing at all, we just thought we’d pay a visit, drop some food off for you and the like.’
‘If you’re here for a little longer I could really do with a hand on this fence.’
‘Looks like you’ve got it under control yourself.’
‘You would think so, but-’
‘An extra helping hand is always appreciated,’ I smiled. ‘I can spare half an hour or so.’
‘I could do with a hand in the yard,’ Lola said. ‘Ariadne, I hope these ladies of yours don’t mind getting their hands dirty.’
‘Believe me, we’re used to it,’ Lara said.
Santana winked over at me and nodded at me to head off with Jeremiah.
Even if I was in charge, I still found myself being carted around in favour of the dynamics of us all.
Jeremiah had completed around half of the fence along the perimeter on his own, and a few minutes later we were creating fences and lifting them into place together, situating them firmly between posts as we had done back at my land.
‘You’re moving at an insane pace,’ I said. ‘After the fence at my land I thought you’d want a rest.’
‘Me too, but… Things have changed.’
I shot Jeremiah a look. His skin had taken on a little more sun-splashed color and his face had a sense of life that was more emphatic than the last time I had seen him.
‘What’s changed, exactly?’
‘Well… Albeit my reserved nature considering the following of the gods that I devote myself to, Lola and I fucked like crazy last night.’
‘What?!’
Thunk. The fence slipped from my hand. The pair of us only managed to catch it in time before leaning it up against a panel already set in place.
‘Good thing I’m wearing gloves or I’d spend the rest of the afternoon pulling splinters out,’ Jeremiah laughed.
‘Sorry… I’m sorry, but what did you just say? You and Lola?’
‘Yes. We have been spending a lot of time together since we met.’
‘Which was only a few days ago.’
‘True, but we were both working fiercely, something we both enjoy, yet we were both becoming more and more… Tense, I suppose. So, one night, she asked if I’d like to, and… Well, I said yes. It seemed like a reasonable way to exorcise the pent-up energy that we both had.’
‘And… How did that work out?’
Jeremiah looked towards the house. The girls were working in the back yard, out of sight and well out of earshot.
‘We’re two men talking, aren’t we?’ He continued. ‘Just you and me.’
‘Of course. It stays between us.’
‘Well, between us, it worked wonders. My mind feels clear. My body feels stronger. I thought that it would release the good energy within me, that I would not be able to carry out my daily tasks, but if anything the opposite is true. I look forward to the end of the day, and the time that I can spend with her. I feel filled with life.’
‘So… Are you two an item now, or…?’
‘A what?’
‘Would you consider yourselves to be in a relationship?’ I said, putting it as formally as possible.
‘Oh, I do not know about that. I swore that I would be with Santana’s mother forever, but after her passing I shut myself off from the world. Arise, work, sleep. Now I feel that I am much more than that.’
‘And the age thing doesn’t bother you? She has told you how old she is, hasn’t she?’
‘Oh, of course she has. It is not a problem for me at all. She frees a beast within me that has long been locked away, that…’
‘All right,’ I laughed, holding up a hand. ‘I think I get the idea. I don’t need to hear anymore.’
‘Indeed, apologies. But as I said, my energy is now harnessed. I feel that I can take on the day. And judging by the way she reacts when I take her, I would say that she enjoys it just as much as I do… I went too far there, didn’t I?’
‘Just a tad. Let’s get this fence finished.’
The diameter of the homestead wasn’t nearly as large as my land, but it still covered a reasonable distance. Once the girls were finished up we had completed another chunk.
We passed a supply of food to them and they gave us milk in return, and we bid farewell and headed to the trading post, while I tried to cast the thought of Jeremiah’s conversation out of my mind.
Well, not necessarily the whole thing. I didn’t want to know the details of what they got up to, probably to the same extent that he had no desire to know what I got up to with his daughter.
What I cared about was that he was genuinely happy. When I had posted him there I had inhibitions about him being lonely, and even when Lola joined him I was worried, but things couldn’t have turned out any better.
I tried to keep my mind off what the hell they were getting up to. At the end of the day, I was happy for them both.
We dropped off the crops at the trading post.
With our trading completed, I assigned Lara and Santana to return to the land along our usual route with the horses and carts.
Ariadne and I made our way around the trading post, acquiring the first three items required to construct Essence of the River for less than 20GP. It was an absurdly small amount of gold considering I acquired ten of each item, but we still had to find Mermaid’s Breath. Fresh water, gills and fish oil were all useless without the final item.
After getting what we needed, Ariadne and I made the trek through the forest towards the waterfall where I had left Elera.
We moved quickly through the forest, and all the while a cacophony of thoughts passed through my mind. What if she had been killed by some creature? What if I couldn’t even find the waterfall?
It had been pitch black last time I had headed towards it, and now, as I moved between the trees of the endless forest of Agraria, I truly began to doubt myself.
And if it weren’t for Ariadne’s fox-ears listening for the waterfall, I probably would have lost my way.
Eventually we arrived at the clearing, pushing through the shrubbery and returning to the place that I had left my nymph what felt like an age ago.
‘Head inside and find her,’ I said, nodding to the waterfall. ‘The cave is right behind there. I’ll climb up and search for some mermaid’s breath.’
My foxgirl nimbly moved around the flow of water, dodging it altogether as opposed to my approach of just jumping straight through.
But halfway through the climb to the top of the waterfall Ariadne’s voice called up to me.
‘Jack! She isn’t down here!’
I returned to the clearing and joined Ariadne behind the waterfall.
She was right. The cave behind the waterfall was empty. Only the burnt out torch that I had left here remained.
I searched around, rooted through the surrounding patches of forest and checked the cave thoroughly several times, but she was nowhere to be seen.
‘Wait, do you hear that?’ Ariadne said, her fox-ears twitching atop her head.
‘Hear what?’
She listened hard, then pointed t
o the base of the waterfall where it slipped into the ground below.
The river. Elera had said that it flowed underground and that she would explore it.
‘What do you hear?’
Just as I finished speaking I heard an hysterical laughter from below.
I crossed to the waterfall and looked down.
‘Elera!?’
‘Tall-man! Is that you?’
‘It’s me. What are you doing down there?’
‘Exploring, like I said I would. Are you coming down?’
‘I don’t want to break my freaking neck.’
‘There’s hardly any fall at all, and the water is deep. You will be fine!’
I turned and looked over at Ariadne.
‘Are you coming?’
‘Down there?’
‘Yeah.’
Ariadne looked to the entrance of the underground tunnel and shrugged.
‘Why not?’
Ariadne undid her shirt, exposing her perky breasts casually, then descending to her shorts and pulling them down. She removed everything, her sexy body bared before me right down to her pawed feet.
‘What the hell are we going to do with our clothes?’ I said.
‘You may be my master,’ Ariadne said, ‘but that is a stupid question. Put them in your inventory.’
She was right; it was a stupid question. It was the easiest way to keep your clothes dry after all; storing them in the ether of your personal inventory.
God, I loved this world.
I did the same, pulling everything down until I was completely naked, and we both stored our clothes away.
Ariadne shot me a look up and down.
‘What?’ I smiled. ‘Like what you see?’
‘Gods, I’m blessed to have a master with a body like yours.’
‘What about me?’ I said, stepping over to her and taking her in my arms. ‘If somebody told me that my first wife would be a girl with a pair of fox ears and pawed feet I would have called them crazy, but here I am.’
‘Here you are indeed,’ she smiled, biting her lip. She wrapped her arms around the back of my neck and kissed me passionately, pulling away slowly as I caressed her round, firm behind.
Ariadne turned to look around herself, surveying the thick jungle that surrounded the waterfall.
‘Someone’s excited…’
‘Can you blame me?’
‘No,’ she smiled, taking a hold of my hardening cock and jerking me lightly, ‘but I really think we should do something about it…’
In the clearing I looked about, searching for some sign of an intruder, but we were alone.
‘Close your eyes, master,’ Ariadne said, stroking me as she caressed one of her breasts.
I smiled and did as I was told, leaning my head back and waiting for the perfect sensation of Ariadne’s lips around me.
She pulled her hand away as I waited in anticipation of her wet tongue pleasuring me… But it never came.
I looked up to see her stood by the waterfall, right before the gap in the ground where the water flowed.
She was still laughing to herself, but now her fingers were between her legs as she gazed back at me, her laughs occasionally being broken up by her own gasps.
Now I was just a dumbass with my dick hanging out.
‘You are such a tease.’
‘I’m a fox-girl, can you blame me? It’s in my nature, after all… And I’m going to make you work for it.’
With a final smile she turned and stepped forward, hopping into the air and disappearing into the waterfall, down into the depths below.
I was already making towards her when she moved, but I didn’t believe she would actually do it.
I leaped forwards and into the waterfall’s stream, dropping into the crevice to follow her.
The light of the jungle vanished instantly. It was replaced by darkness and the crushing sound of water all around me as my stomach felt like it was fighting to break past my lungs.
I fell for only seconds. Ariadne’s hand reached out to me and I grabbed hold of her.
The moment I wrapped my arms securely around her we struck the water feetfirst.
We crashed beneath the surface into a swirling mass of white and black. Water coursed down from above.
I pushed us away from the waterfall’s stream and ahead to where the water was running in a steady, moderate stream. It was nowhere near powerful enough to drag us under, but with the rushing adrenaline in my veins my only priority was getting to a dry spot.
We both gasped for air as we pushed above the surface. We swam to the small embankment in the cavern that ran on one side of the river.
The ground below us rose a little, but looking up I found a blue hand offered out for the taking.
Elera pulled Ariadne up onto the shore and I dragged myself out after. She was panting for breath and collapsed onto her back.
‘You’re gonna be the death of me.’
‘Oh, Master Jack,’ she panted. ‘Live dangerously once in a while.’
‘Living dangerously is the only thing I do in this world.’
‘I am glad that you have started to see the light of my ways,’ Elera said, her blue, flawless body standing naked before me. ‘Clothes hold you land-beings back so much.’
‘It’s not that,’ I said. ‘We just didn’t want to get our clothes soaked.’
‘Oh,’ Elera said, a little disappointed. ‘Well, never mind.’
‘I mean, if we’re alone I don’t mind at all,’ I said, wrapping my arms around my foxgirl and my nymph. I hadn’t asked Elera to be my wife yet, but judging by the night in the cave that we had spent together I could only guess that she liked me.
I was already getting hard as they snuggled up to my sides on the sandy embankment in the cave, their tight, wet, naked bodies pressed against my muscular form in the dim light, but Elera had other ideas.
‘Come on,’ she said, hopping up, ‘there is something that you must see.’
‘Oh, come on,’ I groaned mockingly, ‘You can’t do that to me.’
‘Do what?’
‘Tease me like that and then take off.’
Ariadne gave me a look and raised her eyebrows, then leaped up too.
‘I think a little exploration would be an excellent idea, master,’ she smiled, linking arms with Elera.
The sight of them walking into the darkness, their firm behinds shaking from side to side in unison, drove me crazy in the best way.
I was being led like a carrot on a stick. There was no way that I couldn’t follow them, so I lit a torch and set off.
We headed further along the winding tunnel for half a mile. It narrowed and widened intermittently, the rocky, dark roof over our heads sinking close to us then jutting upwards randomly.
It felt weird being naked and casually walking about like this, but we were out of sight of anything sentient, and the further we went the more I forgot about it.
Occasionally a fluttering of wings sounded in the darkness above - bats, or something that resembled them, but I didn’t want to ask right now.
‘Here.’
The river widened sharply into a gigantic underground pool that measured thirty yards in diameter. The current slowed here, the remaining water slipping away into a further passage of water on the opposite side to where we stood.
Despite the dark interior, the place felt like a haven. There were remnants of an old campfire nearby, an abandoned tent that hadn’t been used in years, and empty storage crates.
Clean, yellowed sand compressed beneath my bare feet.
‘This is a hideaway,’ I said. ‘A smuggler’s passage. How much more of the river have you explored, Elera?’
‘That is the interesting part. Do you see the exit over there where it continues to flow? The river carries on below ground for a few hundred yards then comes out in another cave, then exits into the forest in the south-west.
‘Caves…’ I repeated. ‘Listen, I’ve got a way for you to survive
on the land. It’s a potion, but there’s one ingredient I’m missing. Mermaid’s Breath. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some in here somewhere.’ I looked ahead to where the river flowed. ‘South-west… That’s the direction of our land. How close is the exit to us?’
‘I did not leave the safety of the river. We will need to check. That is the boring part...’
‘There’s another part?’
Elera smiled and ushered Ariadne and I to the water’s edge. We crouched low as she pointed to the centre.
‘Do you see it?’
I followed her finger and looked to the centre of the pool. The waters were dark in the depths of the cave, but below the surface I could see the faintest blue light emanating.
‘There’s something down there,’ Ariadne said.
‘I swam down yesterday to investigate. There is a tunnel that emerges into a hidden chamber within an air pocket. That is where the source of the light lurks.’
I continued to stare at the water with intrigue. ‘Did you get a chance to see what it was?’
‘No. It is only a small pocket but... There is something down there. Something large and bright. I could not get a reasonable look, but I have no desire to head in alone.’
Something shiny within an underwater chamber.
It had to be something valuable.
I thought back to the Mossley and the treasures hidden in the chest.
Whatever was down here, it wasn’t hidden in a chest; it was out in the open.
My mind raced at the thought of a shrine or huge golden idol.
And that meant a pay-off for the tribe.
All the same, I couldn’t help remembering what Santana had said; there were monsters that lurked in the deep. We weren’t far enough below the ground, but down here anything could be waiting.
‘Even if there’s some huge monster down there,’ I started, ‘there’s no harm in taking a look. How far is it through the water?’
‘A few seconds for me, but for you? Maybe… Ten?’
‘I can manage it, as long as you show me the way.’
‘You wish for me to go back down there? I spent three months avoiding being eaten by sirens, and now I am back in a cave underground venturing into a monster’s home? Are you crazy, Tall-man?’
